Ditch requests ditched
Homeowners’ requests to expand scope of infilling projects get no traction with Summerside council
The long-standing issue of ditch infilling reared its head again at Summerside’s committee of council meeting Tuesday night.
Aaron MacDonald, director of technical services, briefed council on two requests the city had received regarding the infilling project currently underway on Westchester Street. He said that residents on either side of the project had requested that their ditches also be filled in.
The requestee on the west side of the project is on Westchester Street between Hallie Drive and Hillside Drive, and will soon be the only house left on that street with an unfilled ditch. The two requests from the east side of the project would bring the line of filled ditches up to the corner of Ross Avenue and Osborne Street.
MacDonald said that city staff was not making any specific recommendations regarding these requests, they were just making council aware of the situation. He did, however, point out that the $500,000 budget the city had set aside this year for ditch infilling is already spoken for. Once the section of Westchester Street is done the contractor will move on to infilling a section of MacWilliams Drive. “We don’t have any dollars to expand this project further,” said MacDonald.
Expanding the project to accommodate these requests would mean the city would have to take the money from its contingency fund, or spend the money this year and reduce the infilling budget for next year to make up the difference.
Further complicating the requests, he said, is the fact that the city uses a severity scale to determine which ditches get filled in what order. The three properties in question are lower on the list than many others and doing them now would skip them ahead on the list, raising questions of fairness.
This issue divided council. Some councillors said they might as well find the money and fill the ditches, given that the equipment is already on site, and to leave a couple of homes on what is essentially one section of street undone doesn’t make much sense.
But others insisted that the only way to ensure fairness in what has been a highly contentious issue for decades (and which is expected to take decades more to complete) is to stick with the list prepared by staff.
In the end, no councillor brought forward a motion regarding the requests.