Clearview Council solidified its long-term vision for the community of Stayner Monday night, voting to contribute $2.9 million over the next two years to the construction of a wastewater pumping station at Knox Road East in Wasaga Beach.
The decision implements the first phase of a plan of action that the municipalities of Clearview and Wasaga Beach formally agreed upon in 2010. Should it be carried through to completion, the second phase of the project would see Clearview spend a further $9.4 million to build a pumping station of its own and install a sewer line connecting the Stayner pumping station to the Knox Road facility. Clearview would then have the option of purchasing two allotments of 2,500 cubic metres of sewage capacity from Wasaga Beach, at a cost of $6 million each. One cubic metre of capacity roughly corresponds to the capacity needed to service one residential home.
The 2010 agreement between the two municipalities was reached after an Environmental Assessment, initiated by Clearview Township in 2004, concluded that hooking into the Wasaga Beach sewage treatment plant represented the most environmentally and economically feasible option for servicing Stayner’s future growth. Currently, the Stayner sewage plant has enough remaining capacity for about 500 residential units. The agreement between Wasaga Beach and Clearview stipulated a deadline of December 1, 2012 for Clearview to decide whether it was in or out.
There was a hitch to Monday night’s decision however, one that led Councillor Brent Preston to pen a column in last week’s Echo questioning how quickly it was being made and whether there had been enough public input. While all indications from the Township since the 2010 agreement have been that the cost of hooking up to the Wasaga Beach system would be front-ended by developers – who currently have 1,680 units in Stayner in draft or final approval and 2,500 more in the initial application stage – it was revealed last week (and discussed further in an in camera session at the outset of Monday’s meeting) that negotiations with the several developers looking to build in Stayner had proven fruitless.
That meant the decision before Council was to debenture the $2.9 million, with $616,000 being borrowed immediately to meet the December 1 deadline imposed by Wasaga Beach, and the remaining $2.3 million being drawn down as needed on July 1, 2014, a second deadline outlined in the agreement. In the meantime, staff proposed that Clearview make 620 units of Stayner wastewater development charges immediately available for pre-purchase at the current price, in hopes that developers will take advantage of the offer and provide an influx of cash that can be used to pay down the debenture quickly.
At press time, the Echo received a statement from the Township indicating that this plan had begun to pay off, with developers committing to purchase more than $1 million in development charge credits in the three days since Monday’s meeting. More were expected to sign on in the coming weeks.
It’s intended that the entire debenture will be paid off using income from development charges, and in fact government legislation prohibits any sewer/water infrastructure being paid for by general taxation, so even if the development charges failed to materialize, taxpayers would not be on the hook for the money. Preston had said differently in his column, but commented on Monday night that after discussing the matter with Treasurer Edward Henley, he had realized his statement had been incorrect. In the eventuality that development charges were not able to pay down the debt, he said, it would actually be existing sewer users who would have to cover the difference.
That said, Henley’s report to Council pointed out that in a worst-case scenario, the development charges from 15 new houses a year over the next 40 years would be enough to service the $2.9 million loan.
Clearview has also made a grant application to the federal and provincial governments to help fund the project, but no decision has been made on the file. Included in the grant application was an additional $4 million to provide much-needed municipal services to Stayner’s industrial lands.
Leading off Monday night’s discussion of the issue was Councillor Thom Paterson, who attempted to allay the concerns held by some in the audience after reading Preston’s column.
“This is the culmination of many discussions we’ve had over the past six years I’ve been on Council and before that,” said Paterson. “If you believe there’s going to be growth, then this is the right decision.”
Paterson went on to point out how the growth number for Stayner – an extra 6,000 people if the first 2,500 cubic metres of capacity are purchased, likely over the next 20 to 25 years – fits in with the number in the Township’s growth plan, which was derived with public input, as well as the Strategic Plan and the County Official Plan. “This is what we’ve been putting in place,” he said.
As far as the investments necessary down the road to bring the plan to fruition, Paterson stressed that those decisions were not a fait accompli as a result of Monday’s decision, but instead would be made when the time came “based on the Township’s ability to pay and on the stimulus for growth.”
Speaking next, Preston stated that his column was not an attempt to “stir the pot,” but rather a genuine plea for help in making a decision on the matter. And of the many people he spoke to and corresponded with over the weekend, he said none felt that Clearview should be borrowing $2.9 million and counting on growth to pay it back in the current economic climate. “This is a question of risk, and for me, there’s too much uncertainty,” he said.
Mayor Ken Ferguson took an opposite view, responding to Preston’s comments by drawing a parallel to his own life. “As a farmer and a businessman, if I don’t take risks, I get nowhere,” he said. “I look at it this way: if we miss this opportunity, we’re setting ourselves back eight years. This is an investment in the future of Clearview Township.”
Deputy Mayor Alicia Savage echoed Ferguson’s comments, admitting that it might have been hard for the general public to follow the evolution of the Stayner servicing issue for the past eight years, but that there had been plenty of opportunities for public comment, as well as two municipal elections where the issue had been a major part of the discourse. “The message that I have continually received is that we have to invest in our primary urban area,” she said. “This is a milestone decision, and we should be celebrating the progress we’ve made to get to this point.”
Councillor Shawn Davidson agreed with Savage in his comments, calling the decision a “fundamental” one, and stating that “making any other decision would be erasing a decade of work.”
Davidson did express frustration that the development community had not come forward with some front-end money for the project, but maintained that the amount of risk involved in the decision was minimal, given the scale of investment that developers have already made to get the various Stayner applications to where they currently stand.
Voting on the issue was separated into three parts. Motions to borrow the $2.9 million and to amend the 2012 budget to state the source of that money as a debenture as opposed to a developer contribution passed by a count of 8-1, with only Preston voting against them. A third motion, to make the 620 units of Stayner wastewater development charges available for pre-purchase at the current price, passed unanimously.
Though Councillor Paterson supported all three motions, he did note his concern that the public had not been kept up to date on the issue as well as it might have been. To that end, he introduced a motion at the end of the meeting calling on staff to host a public information session, sometime in the new year, to review the Township’s work on the file over the past eight years and to explain the municipality’s options moving forward. “This is arguably the most significant decision this Council will make, and it is vital that Council and staff communicate with residents to review how we arrived at this point and why it is the right plan for Stayner and Clearview,” he said. His motion then passed unanimously.