There were perhaps 300 people in a standing-room-only Highline Hall, and more in an overflow room. Nine deputations. Additional comments from the audience. A police patrol. And then the discussion began.

Last week’s Regular Council meeting started at 7pm and ran into the first hour of the morning. It ended with two hotly contentious motions approved: the last piece of the water infrastructure required by Kaitlin for its Cork and Vine subdivision, and the design tender for a Regional Water Treatment Plant to be built in Wellington.

A third motion, to press pause on future construction until a financial roadmap can be put in place, garnered wide support, breaking the deadlock that has ruled at Council for months.

First up was awarding the tender for the sanitary pumping station required to pump water through the new trunk lines being installed in Wellington this year. Without the pump, the pipes can’t service Cork and Vine.

The required $6 million expenditure, almost $3 million more than budgeted, is wholly re-payable through Development Charges, because the station is being built solely to service Cork and Vine. Awarding that tender completes the County’s interim servicing obligations to the developer.

The SPS was approved. But given the high total costs to complete servicing for Kaitlin, discussion considered the timing of the first up-front payment.

That payment has doubled, from an expected $6.48 million to $12.67 million.

County planning staff have worked with Kaitlin to increase the mix of housing types in its first phase of development. Its proposed apartment blocks now include more of the one-bedroom and studio apartments identified as an immediate housing need. The increase in housing units means development charges have also increased.

As the County is slightly behind schedule in the servicing, Kaitlin asked for another extension, from September 1 to December 1, on that first payment.

That extension was recommended by staff, as completion of the waterworks is a condition of creating a subdivision agreement, required to trigger the up-front payment.

Staff suggested a timeline of executing subdivision agreements by October 31, followed by the DCs associated with those agreements payable by December 30, 2024.

But Council disagreed.

Even though, as the Mayor, Councillor Phil St-Jean, and others noted, it was the County’s fault that Kaitlin was asking to extend its payment deadline, Council voted 9-5 to insist Kaitlin make the upfront payment by October 1. Councillors Hirsch, Maynard, Roberts, MacNaughton, and Mayor Ferguson were opposed.

Whether the County or Kaitlin can meet the new timeline remains to be seen, as subdivision agreements need to be executed first.

No matter what, however, staff stressed that the first phase of Cork and Vine is expected to begin in Q3 of 2024 and be completed by Q4 of 2025.

Regional WTP Design Tender

Next on the agenda was a $2.5 million Design Award for the Regional WTP to be built in Wellington.

As Project Manager Garrett Osborne wrote in his report, “This project is urgent given the timelines to complete this design work and final construction. Without proceeding with this Regional Water Plant, approximately 8000 units of proposed development projects will not be able to proceed as the existing capacity of the Wellington Water Plant and the Picton Water Plant is insufficient to support projects that are already in the planning process.”

New development within Picton and Wellington is estimated to add about 4,200 new homes to the County by 2032, and a total of 8,700 units by 2043. (See chart, below.)

The Picton WTP has the equivalent of approximately 2,200 single dwelling residential units of capacity remaining  — and 5400 units in the planning process.

The Wellington WTP has the equivalent of 335 single dwelling residential units of capacity remaining — and 2650 units in the planning process.

The Budget

A new regional water system was estimated in the most recent Regional Master Water Servicing Study at $192.4 million. $150.6 million of that amount is eligible for regional Development Charges (DCs).

The other $41.7 million cost of the new infrastructure will benefit existing users (21.7%). $16.1 million of that amount has already been incorporated into water rates. That leaves $25.6 million to be incorporated into the 2026 rate study, unless the province receives funding from the Housing-Enabling Water Systems Fund (HEWSF). That is expected to contribute $18.3 million towards the Regional WTP and intake project, reducing the $25.6 million to only $7.2 million to be added to water rates, this time including new rate payers across the region.

So confident are they of the provincial funding, Councillors approved an amendment to the design tender motion to make it conditional on the receipt of the $18.3 million in funding. That motion passed 8-6. Councillors Harrison, Pennell, Engelsdorfer, Braney, Nieman and Prinzen were opposed. 

Next, the regional WTP design tender award motion, now amended to become conditional on the $18.3 million provincial funding award, was approved by a vote of 9-5. Councillor Pennell here switched sides and voted to approve.

Just Press Pause

A further motion, proposed by Corey Engelsdorfer, opened by suggesting a pause on all infrastructure projects until a timeline, financial strategy and development charge framework can be created and integrated into all stages of the major projects the County is undertaking.

CAO Marcia Wallace noted, “I agree with everything in this motion except the first line.”

She continued, “this is exactly how we should proceed. We know that the development charges frameworks need to be redone to take account of a regional water plan.

“We are also considering Colliers, a major project management firm, to manage both the new Long Term Care home and the Water/Wastewater projects. These are major works. We definitely need experts to manage them.

“Our revenue tools are limited; we have four sources of revenue: grants, taxes, water rates, and development charges. So we are looking at development charges and growth to fund these major projects. But that requires careful timing and long-range planning.

“As for cost recovery management — that’s financing and that absolutely needs to be laid out, and I agree that needs to be done before any construction project can start.

“To defer any new construction beyond this tender — that makes sense to me. In the meantime we can figure out the bigger picture.”

After some discussion, the motion was amended to pause everything not already under construction.

That means all current projects can be completed, and tenders and design tenders awarded, as approved at the night’s meeting. But going forward, the motion requires,

“THAT the County defer construction of all further waterworks infrastructure projects that are not already underway, to allow time to refocus efforts to implement proven program management practices to minimize financial risks.”

Specified milestones, such as the Picton Master Servicing Plan and a Regional Development Charges Study, and a roadmap of all parts, phases, stages, timelines and budgets, “to control the cost and pace of inter-related projects over the duration of the entire waterworks program,” and clear communication throughout, are now required components of infrastructure project management going forward.

The motion was approved 12-2. Councillors Roberts and MacNaughton were opposed.