Sundre town council has formally approved moving ahead with the expenditure of $3.5 million for the east side services water and wastewater project for 1st Avenue N.E. and the north portion of 7th Street N.E.
The plan, which is an extension of the previously approved 7 St. NE mainline project, will include a water supply main in 7th Street this year, which will service a future water reservoir at the top of the hill to the east.
Although council passed the motion Sept. 12, noting that it will use up the rest of available grant money and will service as many property owners as possible, the vote was not unanimous. Patricia Toone was the lone dissenter, arguing the plan was “not friendly” to residents.
“The first plan was to go down the back lanes along 1st Avenue and more residents would have been served but I guess that would have cost more. Engineers thought this was the best option,” said Toone, adding she recognized the town has to move forward to use up the (Building Canada Fund) grant dollars.
“The plan has changed a number of times over the years,” she noted.
Although the longtime councillor said she would have preferred implementing a previous plan Toone said she is prepared to move forward.
“The majority rules and we need to support council,” she said, adding council has to turn its attention to other areas of town. “We are not tied to the east side. The town has grown in many ways. There are other areas that could develop, including the west side.”
The new servicing project will potentially connect 30 properties. Construction is scheduled to begin in the spring of next year. However, residents and business owners will not be forced to tie in to the system with a town-imposed levy, unlike a previous proposal earlier this year that led to widespread opposition against the servicing initiative, once known as the East Side Servicing Local Improvement Project (ESSLIP).
The town was forced to overhaul and ultimately jettison the ESSLIP when property owners signed a petition last spring against a proposed $24,000 residential local improvement levy, as well as a $1,329.87/front metre Local Improvement Levy for commercial/industrial properties.
As well, the previous plan nearly forced the cancellation of plans to build a multi-million dollar Best Western hotel on the east side.
In order to get future development plans for the east side back on track town officials overhauled the servicing project. There is no longer a stormwater management component. The new proposal for the east side properties only targets lands on the north side of Hwy. 27, as opposed to the previous plan that covered all of east Sundre. No longer will the project be phased, and most importantly for property owners, there will not be any mandatory local improvement levy.
Administration is now working on a proposed costing plan for east side property owners that will enable them to tie into the water and wastewater lines. That plan is expected to go before council within the coming month.
As for the hotel, it will now go ahead, thanks in large part to an agreement between the town and Ryan Thorogood, president of Totem Golf Ltd., who is spearheading the construction of the hotel.
Thorogood contributed $600,000 to the construction of the $847,492.50 7th Street N.E. water and wastewater mainline extension project that was approved in July. It will ultimately run one block along 7th Street towards Main Street, where the site of the new 80-room, 47,000 sq.-ft. Best Western hotel is located.
“I think the hotel is going to be a great asset for the community,” said Toone. “We have a lot of sports activities here, golf courses and tourism attractions but people have a hard time getting a hotel room because of the oil patch industry.”
