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Council to decide Wednesday whether to pay for pipe upgrade
After years of arguing, city council is to decide this Wednesday whether Manotick will get a major new sewer line.
At stake, depending on whom you ask, are the city’s planning principles, Manotick’s character as a small village, millions of dollars in city money, and the well-being of a neighbourhood whose residents are desperate to replace failing septic systems.
On one side is a group of property owners with failing septic systems who are willing to pay $12,000 to $15,000 each to get the pipe. They are mainly represented by the Manotick Community Association.
On the other side is the West Manotick Community Association, whose members don’t want the pipe. They argue the city hasn’t showed enough evidence that a smaller sewage-treatment system, built nearby, can’t serve the area in conjunction with a smaller sewer pipes. They worry that putting in a big pipe will make rapid growth in the area inevitable.
In the middle are city bureaucrats recommending the $27-million pipe that would connect the area to the city’s system and ship sewage to the regional treatment plant, far away on the Ottawa River in Gloucester.
Under the plan, which was spurred by people in areas that want the pipe, the city will pay $6 million of the cost, the benefiting property owners will pay $6 million, and the rest will be covered by other homeowners, both existing and future, as they hook up.
Chris Hawes is in the group that has been fighting for the pipe for years while their neighbourhoods have become increasingly smelly. He says the situation was caused in the older part of the village when builders were allowed to construct on lots that were too small, on land that is not conducive to septic systems.
He said his group is also against growth in the area, but it’s coming anyway, and a solution to his and his neighbours’ septic problem is long overdue.
The two sections of his group voted 72 per cent and 67 per cent in favour of having the pipe built and to pay thousands of dollars each for the service in their areas.
Mr. Hawes said people from the anti-pipe group aren’t being asked to pay a dime.
He, too, would prefer an alternative to a big pipe to the regional treatment plant, but he says the options have been studied by the city, the ministry of the environment and others and been rejected.
“This area is going to grow whether we like it or not, and the capacity of the system is going to be needed,” he said. “The problem just keeps getting worse and worse in this area.”
He said opponents of the pipe, who mostly live in newer areas of Manotick, “came to this game late, have no idea about the issues, and are just trying to throw up anything because they think (the pipe) will increase the chance of having development.”
Brian Tansley, president of the West Manotick Community Association, indeed has many objections.
His association’s mandate is to maintain the character of the village and earlier this year, it successfully lobbied city council to reject a proposed residential development that would have doubled the population of the area.
The developer, Minto, is appealing the council decision to the Ontario Municipal Board, which has the power to overrule councillors.
Mr. Tansley says the vote to bring the pipe to the area was undemocratic because it only involved about 20 per cent of the residents of the village even though the decision effects everybody. (Mr. Hawes says 35 to 40 per cent of the village was involved.) Mr. Tansley says his residents, who have septic tanks that are working, don’t have to participate in the program for now, but after the pipe is in place the city will pressure everyone to hook up, so as to recoup more of the cost.
He said if residents refuse, the city will allow rapid growth in order to recover the cost.
He said with such a small area of the village needing the service, the city clearly didn’t do enough research into smaller-scale systems and expanding a current alternative sewage treatment system operating in Manotick already.
He also said whatever research the city did on expanding the current sewage treatment facility in the village, and on an unsolicited proposal by a local company to have smaller pipes service the area, is being withheld from the public.
“It’s all very hush-hush; that’s what’s really bothering people,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem to make sense.”
Dixon Weir, the city’s director of water services and the point man on the project, pointed out that the big-pipe solution came after a rigorous environmental assessment that looked at many alternatives, and that it has been approved by the Environment Ministry. He said the city is preparing to release its finding on expanding the existing plant, but its assessment and rejection of the small-pipe proposal is being kept confidential at the request of the company that raised it.
Mr. Weir did say the assessment of the small-pipe proposal concluded “we are on the right path.
“We are comfortable that what we are doing is the right thing,” he said. “The selection of this as the preferred option was a public process conducted in 2005 that looked at many alternative solutions.”
Making matters more complicated is increasing anger from city councillors in downtown areas, who are unhappy that their residents’ taxes are continually being used to offset the true cost of urban sprawl.
This matter was scheduled to be decided by council at its previous meeting, but it was deferred. The move came partly because the councillor for Manotick, Glenn Brooks, was in China, but only after the big-pipe idea started taking a beating from Capital Councillor Clive Doucet.
Mr. Doucet said it’s time the city stopped spending huge amounts of money to extend city services into the countryside and was getting into the financial aspects of the plan when Cumberland Councillor Rob Jellett, who represents a rural area, moved deferral.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008