59 Carden St.

Cities share pipe dreams

Posted by Laura

Guelph isn't the only city concerned about the future of its pipes, roads and sewers.

In today's Hamilton Spectator, reporter Eric McGuinness explains how Hamilton is using trenchless techniques to rehabilitate its sewer system.

Click here to see the story.

Guelph has started to use the same process for its water mains. The first pilot project was on Rickson Avenue where city workers relined the water main with a fibreglass resin.

"It makes a pipe within a pipe. It's the latest technology," Gerry Best, city supervisor of water distribution, told me last week.

"It's a little cheaper, but where you save your costs is there's no reinstatement fee. You don't have to put a new road in because it's all done underground."

The buzz around infrastructure

Posted by Laura

Infrastructure was big news in Guelph yesterday. First, the province announced $8 million for the U of G to fix up its aging buildings. Then, council learned last night that the city's infrastructure gap is estimated at $25 million.

The funding for the U of G comes on the heels of the provincial auditor general's report that found universities have been drowning in a sea of deferred maintenance costs.

U of G was one of three universities audited for the annual report. Site visits were also conducted at McMaster and Carleton universities.

The auditor general's office found the three institutions had a combined deferred maintenance backlog estimated at $409 million. Across Ontario universities, that figure rises to $1.6 billion.

Check out the auditor general's report here.

When I asked Guelph MPP Liz Sandals about the report in December, she said aging infrastructure was an issue across many sectors.

"The auditor general's report always gets a lot of attention from the government. In many cases, the auditor's report will identify issues that weren't necessarily widely recognized. In the particular case of public infrastructure renewal, it is an issue that is already recognized," she said at the time.

Based on yesterday's announcement, it appears the province has decided to respond in a timely way to the auditor general's findings.

It's good news for the U of G and for the university sector in general.

 

Not on Crawley Road

Posted by Magda

There's a number of spots for a mosque in the city, and none of them is the south-end property purchased by the Muslim community.

The city's created a map of the sites that could house a religious institution. You can see it here:Download Sites for religious institutions.pdf.

Earlier this month, 100 people crammed city hall to ask the city to rezone the land on Crawley Road for a mosque.

At the time, city planner Al Hearne had this to say: "We prefer to see religious facilities in residential areas where people can walk, bike and take transit, as opposed to the outskirts of the city where people have to drive. I find it hard to believe there isn't a good site in the city."

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. The Muslim community has already bought Crawley property, which increases the stakes. This is also the sixth or seventh attempt the community has made at securing a bigger space.

"Be good to your treasurers"

Posted by Magda
There was a pregnant pause in council chambers -- or perhaps just in my head -- tonight as a consultant told the city to "be good to your treasurers."

Christine Scrimgeour was at council to explain changes coming to accounting techniques. (I'll spare you that here, though I've written a story about it for tomorrow's paper.)

What it boiled down to was this: it's going to be a lot of work.

What Scrimgeour doesn't know is this: Guelph doesn't have a treasurer. We haven't had one since the sudden and still-mysterious departure of David Kennedy in July. In August, the city said they'd likely hire a new treasurer by September. Then in November, the city said it would likely be January before a treasurer is hired, after the candidate the city hired initially took the job, then accepted another offer.

The minutes are ticking down on January.

The city should be good to the people who have been juggling responsibilities to fill in, for much longer than anyone expected.

The $25-million gap

Posted by Magda
The city's infrastructure gap is about $25 million. That's the difference between what the city's putting into infrastructure and what is needed.

If the city wanted to pay it off in a single year, it would have to raise taxes by about 15 per cent.

These details came out tonight in a special council meeting about infrastructure.

Of course, the city wouldn't fund the entire gap itself, and it won't be paid off in a single year.

"That's why we're asking the feds and the province to get in the act and be helpful," said Councillor Karl Wettstein.

Read more in the paper tomorrow.

"A grave inaccuracy"

Posted by Magda
There was an interesting exchange at council last night regarding funding for cities.

A group called the Large Urban Mayors' Caucus of Ontario, or LUMCO, is trying to get more funding for municipalities. They want Ontario municipalities to support a motion asking the feds for one cent of the GST to go to cities, for infrastructure improvements.

The motion says that should happen because of a few things:

• responsibility for infrastructure is increasingly being shifted from the federal government to cities,
• cities say there's an infrastructure definict, countrywide, of $60 to $100 billion,
• "Canada's cities are underfunded,"
• "the Government of Canada has not yet committed to permanent sustainable revenue sharing to assist municipal governments."

As readers of 59 Carden St. have pointed out, the ensuing debate seemed politically based.

Here's what Councillor Gloria Kovach said regarding endorsing the motion: "I know it may sound political given my circumstances (she's the federal Conservative nominee for our riding), but to say the federal government has abandoned cities is a grave inaccuracy." She said the federal government is now funding cities to the tune of $30 billion -- more than it ever has before.

Councillor Lise Burcher replied: "The difference between $30 billion and $130 billion is signficant. Our council would be very wise to support this rather than to say we support funding for infrastructure without tying a figure to it."

When it came to endorsing the LUMCO motion, council voted 12-1, with Coun. Kovach opposed.

Anything but a drive-thru

Posted by Magda
Councillor Maggie Laidlaw was characteristically colourful last night in her comments about the vacant gas station site at London and Woolwich.

She said Tim Hortons was considering at one point turning the site into a drive-thru.

"I'd love to have it derelict rather than a drive-thru," she said.

There's a proposal on the table for it to be neither -- a company called Quantum Murray wants to buy it to potentially build ten environmentally friendly townhouses, perhaps even to LEED standards, on the site.

(Interestingly, council has no concrete plans to stop drive-thrus at this point, though there is some discussion of the issue.)

Museum, not wet plant

Posted by Magda
Councillor Bob Bell asked at council last night whether the city might've applied for provincial cash for the wet plant instead of the convent.

(The province has rolled out a new chunk of money -- $300 million -- for infrastructure projects. Guelph's applied to get $10 million of that to fix up the Loretto Convent so the Civic Museum can move in.)

Environment director Janet Laird replied to council that the wet plant is not construction-ready, which is a requirement for getting the money. She also said it isn't expected to cost $10 million, and the city wanted to apply to ge the biggest pile of cash possible.

The committee that's choosing a technology for the plant is meeting Thursday. Read more about that in the Mercury later this week.

Past should inform decisions

Posted by Magda
I'm disappointed a seemingly key question wasn't asked tonight as councillors discussed the redevelopment of a former gas station at the corner of London and Woolwich.

Councillors were worried that because the money is for a cleanup plan -- not the cleanup itself -- there's no guarantee the site will actually be cleaned up. (The would-be developer could do the study, conclude the cost is too high and get out.)

It was hardly the dim past (2003, in fact) when a previous plan to redevelop the site fell through. Newspaper coverage of the day doesn't describe what the problem was, and I haven't yet found someone who remembers. But the reasons are key here -- I suspect it may have fallen through because of the staggering cost of cleanup. If that was the case, I imagine it could happen again.

Here's hoping those questions get asked as this proposal moves ahead.

In the meantime, read more about tonight's discussion in tomorrow's Merc.

"We want your garbage"

Posted by Magda
The tiny village of Cache Creek B.C., population 1,200, gets a third of its budget from the trash.

They take in 500,000 tonnes of garbage from the Vancouver area every year. In exchange, they get $1 million in taxes.

Which is why they're worried about Vancouver's decision to build an incinerator and deal with their garbage themselves.

Regardless of your take on incinerators, this debate is interesting -- there doesn't seem to be an Ontario municipality bustling for anyone's garbage -- and one that we'll likely hear more and more often as the amount of space we're willing to set aside to hold trash dwindles. (York Region approved an incinerator last week.)

And though we haven't got one here -- yet -- the city's currently sending your green bags to an incinerator in Niagara Falls, NY. Plus, we'll need a plan for when our contract with the St. Thomas landfill that currently takes our trash expires in 2013. (The City of Toronto committed to keeping existing contracts when it bought the landfill recently. I think it's safe to assume, though, that they bought it to deal with their own waste woes and likely won't want our trash once the contract expires.) I'm predicting an incinerator -- either our own or one we'll partner on with someone like Waterloo Region -- on the agenda real soon.