Uplands Sewer Project Solution Needs Community Input
The Community Association of Oak Bay feels that the recent decision by Council to postpone the Uplands Sewer Project will have a profound effect on future property taxes.
At the Council meeting of January 11, 2010, the Mayor and five Councillors made a decision to postpone the approval of the Uplands Sewer Project. Nils Jensen did not support the motion. The decision could result in property tax increases of as much as 15% or $400.00 per year for the average home owner in Oak Bay over the next 20 to 25 years. This would be in addition to the estimated $700 – $800 per year increase which will be levied against Oak Bay tax payers to pay for and operate the proposed new sewage treatment system for the proposed Capital Regional District Liquid Waste Management System.
Prior to that meeting the engineering firm of Kerr Wood Leidal Associates Ltd. examined four possible solutions to the Uplands combined sewer (storm and sanitary) separation initiative, and recommended one known as a LOW PRESSURE SEWER (LPS) system.
* CRD WWTP – Capital Regional District – Waste Water Treatment Plant
Council was prepared to approve the LPS system. Uplands residents, who account for 380 homes or 6% of the total households in Oak Bay, convinced Council to reconsider the engineer’s recommendations. Uplands residents have made it clear that they would prefer a gravity sewer system installation, costing from $23 to $30 million. There are no offsetting Federal and Provincial grants for this option. All costs of a gravity system will be born by all Oak Bay property taxpayers including the higher maintenance and treatment costs.
The engineer’s recommendation for the LPS would cost $7.6 million and is funded by federal and provincial infrastructure grants of $5.1 million. The balance of $2.5 million would be funded from the municipalities reserve fund and result in no property tax increase.
The Community Association applauds the interest and commitment of Uplands residents to work with all Oak Bay residents to resolve our long standing sewage issues. However, the solution proposed by some Uplands residents to deal with apparent needs of 6% of Oak Bay’s households confront all Oak Bay taxpayers with the costs of paying for a system that goes well beyond the base standards required for the sewer upgrade.
Please attend the council meeting of January 25 at 7:30 PM and demand council consider the interests of the other 5500 taxpayers of this community. Should you be unable to attend the council meeting send an e-mail to obcouncil@oakbay.ca, or deliver your written comments to the Municipal office attention Mayor and Council before January 25, 2010. Please forward this email to your Oak Bay friends and neighbours.
Council has not represented the financial interests of all taxpayers of Oak Bay in dealing with this issue. Furthermore, they have not considered the environmental effect their decision will have on the CRD’s Waste Management System.
Become informed about this issue. Information can be found here. You should be concerned about the lack of consultation, lack of information provided to you by Council, and the decision by Council to delay the vote.
Directors
Oak Bay Community Association
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Themocracy
Please e me a breakdown of costs for the ‘maintenance and treatment’ section for the gravity sewage system in Table 2.1
Thankyou
Archie, thanks for your visit to the Community Association of Oak Bay’s website, caob.ca.
Unfortunately, we don’t have access to a breakdown of the maintenance costs on this project, just the information we posted, which can also be found on the municipal website
Here’s a link to the Business Case put forward by the engineering firm contracted by the municipality.
If you want more specific information, I would suggest you email obcouncil@oakbay.ca. I hope this is helpful.
I am not a resident of the Uplands, I live in Henderson. As an Oak Bay taxpayer I strongly believe that my taxes cover the costs of anything that happens in Oak Bay, i.e. if a road needs resurfaced in another neighbourhood, then our ‘collective whole’ pick up the costs. Even if I dont use that road. By coming out and publicly stating that your association disagrees with councils position on the Uplands sewage project and indicating that the price should be borne by the group that only represents 6% of the population (you neglect to mention what % of taxes they pay btw), you are effectively setting a dangerous precedent. Why then, should I wish to share in the cost of resurfacing a road I will never use? Or maintenance of Windsor Park that I never use? Because I am part of the community of Oak Bay and as such I have to pay my portion.
This boils down to how Council approached this issue. No consultation and little notice. Council could have chosen to implement the LPS system and passed the costs on to the tax base and not the residents, but they didnt. End result was a knee jerk reaction from both camps.
But Richard, no one is asking that the Uplands residents pay for the entire cost of the system. They would have to pay to have these pumps installed and connected to the main, just as the rest of Oak Bay will have to do, when we all upgrade our sewage treatment system over the next few years. Many Oak Bay homes are not adequately connected to storm and sewage with separate pipes. This will mean a cost of about $3000-$10000 per connection. The same goes for the Uplands with this upgrade.
My understanding of the problem is that if we don’t go with the LPS system, then we forgo $5.1 million from the Fed/Prov Stimulus fund, and will instead have to pay for the entire system ourselves. Oak Bay has a reserve fund of about $2.5 million. So two put together would have covered the entire LPS system (about $7.5 million).
On the other hand, the gravity feed system is about $20 million, with no help from any other level of government, that leaves us with $17.5 million owing.
If the residents of the Uplands want a more expensive system, then perhaps they need to convince the rest of us why the one they were about to get for nothing (but for connection fees, just as they would be required to pay for with the gravity feed system they want) is inadequate?
Richard:
The Community Association is in agreement with you. Lack of consulation and no notice. Council had known about the options since August of 2009. Why did they choose November 22nd at the date they informed the affected Uplands residence of the recommended choice? In the face of opposition from Uplands, Council did not seek input from the rest of the Municipality.
[...] funding deadline of Jan. 29th. The directors of the Oak Bay Community Association have also released a statement asking council to consider the financial considerations of the entire municipality when making a [...]
Hi Tom, it appears that Council had this data in March 2009 so nearly 10 months before anything public was done. Its not like Oak Bay has a lot going on that it should take 10 months to make a decision without consultation! Pretty poor job and very indicative of the quality of leadership we have here.
My point here is that regardless of the location, whether its the Uplands or Esquimalt, the problem lies with poor planning of the area many years ago. Why then, should the costs to correct the errors of our Grandfathers be passed on to the homeowner today? This error should be corrected of course, but the costs should be borne by the collective whole, not the individual homeowner.
As for Michelles reply “They would have to pay to have these pumps installed and connected to the main, just as the rest of Oak Bay will have to do, when we all upgrade our sewage treatment system over the next few years. Many Oak Bay homes are not adequately connected to storm and sewage with separate pipes. This will mean a cost of about $3000-$10000 per connection” I sat on the community committee for sewage treatment with the CRD and asked about this several times over the last 3 years. This is one of the reasons why it went from $2Billion down to under $1 Billion. The burden of connection and upgrading is in the hands of each Municipality, read the homeowner. So the CRD is trumpeting how cheap it now is, but all we are doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul. The end result will be some catastrophic tax increases that are geographically unbalanced which will leave little to zero room for any other infrastructure tax increases for many years to come.
The best we can do now as taxpayers is to ensure that our ‘elected’ and ‘unelected CRD’ officials are reminded that they work for us and keep pounding them with the question “Is this the best decision that can be made for today and tomorrow?”
Its a shame that the vocal minority (the idealogues) have such power over the rest of us.
Thank you Richard for your well put reply, it’s time council should know that waiting until the 11th hour after months of internal deliberation to subject the residents of Uplands to such arm twisting is completely inappropriate.
Richard is right. Our elected and unelected “representatives” are getting more and more out of touch with tax-payers. They should be accountable to us but they are not. You can’t spend money you don’t have on something you don’t need. That’s the first thing they teach you in school!
Council is right too. They need to stop rushing, sit down and rethink, so that’s exactly what they are doing. There is “always” a good solution to every problem if the necessary time is taken. The sewage situation is not new and if it was acceptable all these years then it obviously does not need a “quick-fix” now.
The real problem is that we can’t view our own sewage/drainage issues in isolation. The reason Oak Bay’s original sewage proposal was discarded was partly due to incompatibility with the CRD’s dubious sewage plans.
Right now, we shouldn’t be doing anything at all until we have stopped the incredible $1B waste of our money by the CRD. Then we can all sit down and work on a proper, sustainable and affordable plan for the future. In the meantime we will all be saving a lot of money, ready for the time when we can spend it wisely.
Super post. A thumbs up for you for posting it.
With appreciation,
Sean
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