City council approved going ahead with a $2-million design phase for a sewer line that’s hoped to help kickstart development in South Riel on Monday night.
After meeting behind closed doors, council made a public motion to go ahead with the engineering design process. It has not approved going ahead with the whole project quite yet.
“What it means is we’re going to design the sewer to allow development to occur,” said Mayor Nolan Crouse. “We need to do the design to know what the total project is going to cost … the current estimate is about $25-million.”
Whether the city is footing the $2-million bill for the design phase up front or get development partners to chip in isn’t clear yet.
The project is currently slated for the design phase to occur in 2016 in the 10-year utility capital plan that was approved as part of the 2015 budget process. The motion from council moves that up a year.
The sewer line is needed before development can get underway in parts of South Riel and other western areas of St. Albert. The project would extend the sewer line from St. Vital to the new regional lift station located in Kingswood.
Crouse said the city will put together the financial model. Council needed to make the motion so it could let developers know it’s interested in signing up some partners for the project, Crouse said.
Council held the discussion privately only because it needed to talk about developer names and its possible funding commitments, he said.
Crouse said council opted to follow his suggestion to make the motion to go ahead with the engineering design public, along with the results of council’s vote. Of the six council members present, the mayor was the only to vote against the motion. Coun. Tim Osborne was absent.
“We should have a picture of how and when we’re going to pay for the entire project. This is only the first step,” Crouse said. He wanted to see the bigger picture and decide from there if council wanted to commit to the whole thing.
Council decided to go ahead with the engineering design process for now and the cost estimate will come back this fall, Crouse said.
Reisa Schwartzman, president and CEO of Cape Construction, said she was thrilled to hear that council had approved going ahead with the engineering phase.
“It’s really, really, really important that it moves forward,” Schwartzman said. Cape Construction is planning on building an urban village development in South Riel, but needs the sewer line built before it can proceed.
“We’re thrilled that it passed and we’re confident council understands the importance of it,” she said.
She said the city should do whatever it needs to get the sewer line built, even borrow money if it has to so the project could be front-ended, with the money recouped from developers later.
Coun. Gilles Prefontaine made a motion in December to have a business proposal for the engineering phase brought forward for council’s consideration.
He was happy to see council approve proceeding with that phase on Monday.
“It was important for us as a community and the development community to see this process going forward,” Prefontaine said. “There’s been a very strong response from our development community and they’re all very eager to see this done and willing to contribute to ensure that it gets done this year instead of doing it in future years.”
Prefontaine said it’s possible this approach of working with the developers to move a project forward will be looked back at as an “ideal example” of a municipality and developers working together.
