Tepid response to $6.5M in new debt
Just over 1% of eligible Summerland voters registered their opposition to the district borrowing up to $6.5 million for a major rebuild of Giant’s Head Road, meaning the project can now proceed.
Council received the results of this spring’s alternate approval process at its meeting Monday.
Under terms of the AAP, which was used to obtain public assent for the borrowing, 10% of registered voters — or 986 people — would have had to formally object to trigger a full referendum or have council reconsider. But just 126 actually objected, falling far short of the threshold to hobble the project.
Assuming a 3% interest rate on a 25-year loan, the district expects the average Summerland property owner to pay about $73 per year through a combination of a 2% tax increase and 4.8% water rate increase.
Graham Statt, the district’s chief administrative officer, said the project will go out to tender this week, with work expected to take place during the summer and substantial completion tentatively slated for Oct. 30.
The construction timeline will dictate when residents start paying the bill, as local governments can only borrow from the Municipal Finance Authority of BC in the spring and fall of each year.
“If the project is pretty much finished, we’ll borrow in the fall, which means payments will kick in in 2023,” said David Svetlichny, the district’s finance director.
The project will focus on a 1.6-km stretch of Giant’s Head Road between Harris and Gartrell roads. Work will include replacing a pair of aging watermains that will allow separation of irrigation and drinking water, widening and repaving the pothole-scarred road above, and creating a separated threemetre cycling path.
An additional one-kilometre section of Giant’s Head Road from Gartrell Road to Hillborn Street will be repaved only.