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Residents of Britannia Village who live on the Ottawa River floodplain are a step away from having protective measures approved by the city.
On Tuesday, councillors on the environment committee endorsed a plan that would see a $400,000 concrete berm constructed along the river, with the city picking up half the cost and property owners footing the bill for the other half.
The move is controversial in the village for several reasons. Some believe the measures won’t be effective, the cost is too high, the formula for calculating what each property owner will pay is wrong, and that the rules surrounding the approval of the project have been changed unfairly.
Last year, city council approved the same plan contingent on two-thirds majority support from property owners.
There had been several failed attempts to fix the problem over decades, but a vote in the community failed to garner the necessary majority.
Earlier this year, the city agreed to change the requirement and accept a basic majority of 50 per cent plus one as sufficient support to go ahead. A new vote garnered 59-per-cent support from the 97 property owners.
Several area residents addressed the committee yesterday.
The committee voted 9-1 in favour of the plan. Only Knoxdale-Merivale Councillor Gord Hunter was opposed. He wanted more precise estimates on the cost of the berm and a review of which property owners should be paying the residents’ portion.
The plan still needs full council approval and will go to council later this month.
The proposed berm is to withstand floods of a severity seen once every 100 years. The last major flood in the area occurred in spring 1979.
For Bay Councillor Alex Cullen, in whose ward the village sits, the plan and flood protection are long over due.
“I’m very pleased that a long-standing issue has finally been addressed,” he said.
Under the plan, property owners would have to pay an extra $60 a year per $100,000 of assessed value put on their homes, for 10 years.
For an average house in the area, this means roughly $220 per year or a total of $2,200.