A minimalist view of the mandate of municipal governments is that councils are there to provide basic municipal infrastructure. That is to maintain town streets and sidewalks, provide water and sewer services, pickup the garbage, and ensure orderly development through the enforcement of a municipal plan and bylaws.

In looking at the cost of he Rothesay Road “Force Main” project I was reminded that in Rothesay water and sewer are paid for through the fees levied on users (and those who could be users!). Given that activity in this area is largely driven by maintenance and required upgrades of the existing system, it’s not surprising that there is little debate about water and sewer spending.

Perhaps the most controversial discussion heard lately was the council tiff over whether to add public toilets to new sewer pumping stations. Even that short council exchange failed to get the point across to the public that captive water and sewer ratepayers should not be the ones paying for these “public conveniences”. Either councilors were poorly briefed by staff or they didn’t see a problem with downloading cost of an unrelated facility on water and sewer ratepayers.  I heard no one in the public council meeting point out that this meant the utilities fund would be covering costs that should have been paid by park users. Clearly this was a clever way to keep the Town’s hefty recreational facilities budget from rising even faster.

That discussion, then, was a lost opportunity by the new council to ask a much more important question, “How do we manage the cost of municipal infrastructure and who should pay for what, when?”

But I digress.

The recent approval of one high density development and the consideration of another reminded me that in Rothesay, subdivision developers are responsible for installing infrastructure to their property line that meets town standards before the town will take it over. That is as it should be. But that approval also confirmed, in my mind, that these developments get very little scrutiny by decisionmakers before the developer’s sunk costs, not public interest, become an argument for moving ahead with approval.

An issue that is seldom examined closely is, “what happens when a new development adds an unsupportable, incremental burden on existing infrastructure, e.g. between the proposed development and the town’s water treatment facilities?”

In many municipalities, developers who hook up their subdivisions are also responsible for any upgrades to the existing municipal water and sewer system made necessary by their new development. That doesn’t appear to be the case in Rothesay. Here, upgrades required to accommodate the new users are covered by all water and sewer ratepayers. That usually happens too late to recover costs from the original developer and years after the development is complete. When this happens, it means ratepayers have effectively subsidized the developer who was able to avoid costs his development was responsible for generating.

Isn’t it time that this Council, concerned about transparency, should be having an informed debate and ensuring that the wider cost implications of proposed development are exposed before development permits are approved?

When Rothesay took over the system in K Park, Rothesay ratepayers should have been informed that they would eventually foot the bill to have K Park sewerage pumped to a new treatment facility via the force main project that has tied up traffic on Rothesay Road all summer.

While I believe because of the passage of time, K Park residents should not have been required to pay for upgrades to the water and sewer system within the Park, the burden of paying for the K Park force main should be a lesson to us on why new subdivision developments should receive much more public, independent scrutiny than appears to be the case at present.

Approvals of high density development should not leave taxpayers exposed to liabilities like downstream flooding or other problems like traffic congestion. That is unfair.

Having said that, I believe a case can be made for transitional arrangements when the Town, through various amalgamations, inherits substandard infrastructure from other jurisdictions.

After paying property tax for years to Rothesay, it would not be fair to expect residents of Renforth to pay up for replacement of sewer pipes nor would it be fair to expect French Village residents to pay the cost of a system for their area twenty years after their amalgamation.

That being said, Council’s treatment of these issues is at best inconsistent. After requiring K Park ratepayers to upgrade their system, in old Rothesay replacement of decrepit infrastructure is paid for by all ratepayers.

Anyone who follows council meeting (At least the ones we know about) will remember the convolutions when the water and sewer bylaw came up for amendment. The Town’s apartment dwellers came out in well organized force to oppose provisions disliked by the apartment owners and developers. The council of the day caved in and ran for the hills.

It remains to be seen if the current council will bend to the wishes of developers in the same way as the previous one did. Approval of the Hampton Road development does leave some doubt that anything has changed. As long as the public debate remains largely uninformed as to the consequences, Rothesay can expect to see a continuation of development approvals with taxpayers totally on the hook for problems that materialize long after the developers have cashed their customers’ cheques and moved on.

We shouldn’t expect much of a debate from those current Council members who were members of the last council on this. I don’t believe they have the stomach to require Rothesay’s developers to accept any liability for downstream impacts on, e.g, stormwater drainage system downstream made worse by high density developments.

If the last few council meetings are any indication, this is a debate we won’t see in council’s public meetings, perhaps because any discussion they have had has gone on behind closed doors. What is clear, is that very soon now we’ll be asked to pay for fixing the problems created by this council as well as the previous ones.

 

And… You thought I was about to complain about the Rothesay Road traffic mess! You wondered if I would ask, why on earth did the Town’s Public Works Committee not foresee the traffic problems and why didn’t they advise Council on ways to mitigate the problems residents have faced all summer? Well that committee is chaired by the deputy mayor, Mr. Alexander. Perhaps he was responsible for responding to public complaints by doubling down, with the sign that stated, you can expect at least a 20+ minute wait…