Minutes
Environment, Transportation & Public Safety Standing Committee
Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Councillor McKenzie inquires as to why this project is moving forward.

Mark Winterton, City Engineer appears before the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee via video conference regarding the administrative report Recommendation of a Revised Local Improvment Policy and Initiation of Contstruction of a Sanitary Sewer and Private Drain Connections on Baseline Road from 7th Concession Road to 8th Concession Road as a Local Improvement under this new policy – City Wide and states that a report was provided to Council in 2019 detailing priority local improvement projects to upgrade the city’s municipal infrastructure and based on that, the roads with the highest priority for local improvement were those without sanitary sewers and also roads that residents wish to petition for. Mr. Winterton adds that given the fact that major trunk sewers were installed under the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund as well as the fact that Baseline Road had no sanitary sewers, this fit the criteria to move forward with this local improvement, and this is the first one that they are proceeding with under this new Policy.

Councillor McKenzie asks for an explanation as to why it is a priority to move the city off the septic systems and onto wastewater systems from an environmental standpoint. Mr. Winterton advises that much of the former Sandwich properties annexed in the 1960’s were built on septic tanks and at one point Turkey Creek and Grand Marais Drain were among the most highly polluted waterways in all of Canada. Administration undertook a very aggressive program in the 70’s and 80’s to get all of these properties largely in South Windsor off septic tanks. Mr. Winterton adds that

It creates an environmental problem when you have polluted waterways with high algae, high pollution unable to sustain wildlife and the idea of environmental pollution is caused by urban development on septic tanks on a hard clay soil that we have in Windsor. Mr. Winterton indicates that septic tanks are largely designed for very large rural lots and are not intended to sustain urban development.

Stacey McGuire, Project Administrator Engineer appears before the Environment, Transportation and Public Safety Standing Committee via video conference regarding the administrative report Recommendation of a Revised Local Improvment Policy and Initiation of Contstruction of a Sanitary Sewer and Private Drain Connections on Baseline Road from 7th Concession Road to 8th Concession Road as a Local Improvement under this new policy – City Wide and indicates that the City had passed a new policy related to local improvements that would assess 100 per cent of the cost of mainline sanitary sewers to the residents. Ms. McGuire adds that before this policy, administration was charging a flat rate which dates back to the early 2000’s which does not apply to today’s construction estimations and essentially, were not covering the cost of the sewer or any portion of the sewer at that same flat rate and the new policy assessed 100 per cent of the cost. Ms. McGuire adds that the requisite notices were sent in January to the residents with a number of objections received relating to the cost. The policy was reviewed and administration came up with a flat rate as noted in the previous policy that more accurately reflects the construction costs. The rate for the linear metre was cut by roughly half and also considered a private local improvement which would provide the opportunity to finance the work on the private portion of the property so that would be the decommissioning of the residents septic system and connection to the new sewer.