Coming Up: May 3
Council meets on Monday. The agenda includes:
Aquatera Rates
Home Ownership in Infill Developments
Following is more information and my take on agenda items.
As always, any mistakes or opinions belong to me and me alone, not to Council or City staff.
While I express my current views below, I work hard to go into meetings ready to listen and with an open mind. I learn new information and participate in debate. This always informs, and sometimes changes, how I vote on issues.
If you would like to watch the meeting or read any of its supporting material for yourself, you can do so by clicking here. The City will post the highlights of Council’s decisions here.
AQUATERA RATES
Aquatera has proposed new rates for customers.
The way Aquatera rates work: they are set by the Aquatera Board but approved by Council.
The Board bases rates on the cost of running the utility systems, anticipated future capital costs to replace aging infrastructure, and dividends for shareholders (the City of Grande Prairie, County of Grande Prairie, the Town of Sexmith, and the Town of Wembley). Council can choose to set lower rates than the Board recommends. However, if Council does this, then the City needs to pay Aquatera for the difference in revenue between what it actually collects under Council approved rates and what it would’ve collected under Board recommended rates. This means that the City needs to either reduce services or increase taxes to finance lower rates.
The Board has not recommended a rate increase since 2019. For 2021, it is recommending a 2.5 percent increase for water and wastewater ($2.27/month for an average residential customer) and no increase for garbage and recycling systems. Here is what this looks like:
Image from a letter sent to Council by Aquatera.
Often when Utility Rates come up in my conversations with residents, they mention or ask about other municipalities. So it is worth looking at how our Aquatera rates compare to similar programs in other municipalities. Here is a snapshot from 2020: Grande Prairie rates were slightly below the median.
Image provided by Aquatera.
I’m likely to support the rate adjustment.
Aquatera rates are very average compared to other municipalities, which is one good indicator that they are reasonable for the service being provided. And considering that the increase is 2.5% over two years and only for some services: it is well below an inflationary increase. So these adjustments don’t seem out of line to me.
Additionally, there are many properties in town that don’t pay property taxes but do consume municipal services. These properties already receive heavy subsidy from tax paying properties. If Council drops Aquatera rates, this subsidy would increase because a portion of their water and wastewater would be paid for by taxpayers. I don’t see good reason to further increase the burden on taxpayers like this.
INFILL HOME OWNERSHIP
Council will be discussing changed rules in Residential Transition zones. Those are the yellow areas of this map:
These zone are having older houses replaced with new infill builds. Currently, infill development on a typical lot is allowed to be in the form of single-detached homes, duplexes, or three-plexes.
However, infill development is expensive. So in practice, developers are using infill land as efficiently as possible by only building three-plexes .A problem with three-plexes: they are almost exclusively used as investment rental properties. Owners don’t tend to live in them. So Residential Transition zones are moving towards becoming rental-only neighbourhoods.
There is no problem with rental-oriented properties. There should be rental opportunities in all neighbourhoods.
However, there should also be ownership opportunities in all neighbourhoods. So it is very concerning to see infill development be almost exclusively rental-oriented.
To address this problem, Administration is proposing changes to our Land Use Bylaw that would allow for more owner-oriented forms of denser housing to be achieved. If these changes are passed by Council, Residential Transition properties that can currently accommodate three-plexes would also be allowed to accommodate a three unit row house or two narrow lot single detached homes.
Here is a picture showing what is currently allowed, and what would be allowed under new rules:
Image from a staff report delivered to Council.
These proposed changes do not increase allowed density of development. Instead, they offer different housing forms to fit within the allowable density.
OTHER COUNCIL CONVERSATIONS
At our meeting, Council will also be having the following conversations:
Changes to the Downtown Phase 4 Borrowing Bylaw which will give administration more flexibility in how it borrows funds in order to save money throughout the project
Council will be discussing a business case for a High Performance Sports Centre which is seeking municipal support. Largely because other regional municipalities aren’t interested in participating at this time, the recommendation is for Council to “receive for information,” which is a polite way of saying “do nothing at this time.”
Council will be discussing a corporate energy strategy meant to find cost savings while also reducing Green House Gas emissions. You can read it here.
A letter being sent from Council to Alberta Health Services requesting more information about the new hospital opening
Council also allows members of the public and other organisations to come to any Council meeting to bring up concerns, ideas, or questions they have. The following delegations have told us they will be coming to speak to Council:
STARS requesting increased financial support from the City
The Youth Emergency Shelter requesting assistance obtaining land in the Gateway area
A resident requesting property tax decreases
Residents raising concerns about noise from the new Combined Heat Power unit installed at the Eastlink Centre
That’s what is on our agenda for Monday. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
You can comment below. Or, you can contact me at dbressey@cityofgp.com or 780-402-4166. I'm happy to talk online or over the phone. I'm also always willing to setup a time to meet for coffee.
We also always have great conversation in the GP Round Table group on Facebook.
After Council meeting, you will be able to find highlights posted by the City here.
Thanks for reading!
-Dylan