City Council chooses stormwater management fund option

Prince George City Council has picked how they’ll fund stormwater management in the city.

Currently, the City’s stormwater system is mostly paid for using property taxes.

However, since there is no money set aside specifically for stormwater management, it has to compete for funding with other city services, such as parks and sidewalks.

At tonight’s (Wednesday) meeting, Prince George City Council was presented with five options for creating a dedicated stormwater management fund:

1. Create a dedicated levy on property taxes,
2. Create a utility fee based on property type and tiered by size,
3. Create a utility fee based on the zoning’s maximum site coverage to determine the amount of allowed hard surface on a property,
4. Create a utility fee based on the actual measurement of the hard surface area in a sampling of all types of residential properties,
5. Do not create a dedicated fund and continue to include stormwater related expenses within the general tax levy, where it will need to compete with other City service categories.

An online survey was available to the public from May 21st to June 28th, and was reopened for a week after floods in Toronto.

The survey received 314 responses.

According to the City, option four garnered the most support.

“This option provides more accuracy in the estimation of hard surfaces on the properties, and therefore, is more fair,” said Manager of Asset Management Kristy Bobbie.

Bobbie noted option four has the largest amount of work to set up, but it is reasonable.

It was also noted that option four, along with two and three, could come with incentive options.

“I really would like to go with something where people are allowed to incentivize,” said Councillor Trudy Klassen.

“I know it would create extra work on our behalf, but it would also create a bit more ownership and consideration, as they’re planning to make improvements to their property.”

“My only concern with four, and recognizing that is where the public responses lean, is the amount of work that, it could result in for staff,” said Councillor Tim Bennett.

“I’m just thinking more of our poor service centre staff who, every year, if people are making improvements to their property and removing hard surfaces, coming into appeal their utility bill every year because they’ve just now invested more into their property to remove hard surfaces.”

Director of Finance Kris Dalio said that would have to be considered with whatever incentive programs are decided.

“But the base bill would not be debatable, that wouldn’t be appealable, that would be based off the GIS data and then incentives, there probably might be an appeal process in there, but not the base charge,” he explained.

Council ultimately chose option four, however Dalio also noted this won’t happen overnight, and will probably take a year or so to implement.

Other items discussed tonight included funding for the Community Arts Council and a public hearing was held for a subdivision in College Heights.