Sewer tab to drain savings

Transcona residents on the hook for portion of costs to install new line

By: Aldo Santin Posted: 3:00 AM CST Saturday, Nov. 18, 2017

A group of residents in a pocket of northwest Transcona long realized that their rural-like setting wouldn’t last forever, but they never imagined the change was going to jeopardize their retirement years.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 17/11/2017 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

About 20 households on Ravelston Avenue W are facing bills of tens of thousands of dollars from city hall after new residential development swallowed up their neighbourhood.

The residents have been informed that they will have to cover a portion of the cost for the installation of sewer lines, even though all of them are on septic tanks and most voted against installing the lines.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Kimberley Halischuk and a group of Transcona residents say city hall is forcing them to spend thousands of dollars to hook up to new sewer lines even though all are on septic tanks. — RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Kimberley Halischuk and a group of Transcona residents say city hall is forcing them to spend thousands of dollars to hook up to new sewer lines even though all are on septic tanks.

“Rules were in place for us to defeat this and we did yet somehow the developers’ needs superseded ours,” said Kimberley Halischuk, who raised two children with her husband Robert in the home they’ve lived in for more than 30 years. “We followed due process. We went down proper channels. We tried to play nice, by the rules, and obviously it doesn’t work…. It’s just not right.”

The Halischuks’ home is a stone’s throw from Lagimodiere Boulevard. Thirty years ago, that area was an open field with a scattering of houses, and it remained that way until very recently. In the past five years, suburban development has occurred at a rapid pace, completely transforming what once had been a rural setting in the heart of the city.

The Ravelston Avenue W neighbourhood is not unique. There are similar pockets of households — with limited city services, wells for drinking water and septic tanks instead of sewer lines — across the city.

These areas, often within spitting distance of more typical city neighbourhoods, are disappearing as developers build on every square inch of available land.

Two years ago, city hall initiated a local improvement plan for Ravelston Avenue W that called for the installation of water and sewer lines on the street. Halischuk and her neighbours voted against it, but now they must connect to the sewer line and pay for it.

City officials said that while Waterside didn’t plan any residential development along Ravelston W in 2015, since the vote, the company bought up some of the land from Halischuk’s neighbours with the intent of a large-scale development.

A development agreement required Waterside to now install sewers, along with paved roads and sidewalks and curbs.

Since the residents defeated the local improvement, Waterside has to cover the cost of the sewer line installation, but residents must pay for their share of the work when they connect, whether they want to or not.

City officials said that because the other improvements — paved roads, sidewalks and curbs — weren’t part of the 2015 local improvement vote, the existing Ravelston West residents get those upgrades at no cost.

Directly behind the Halischuk’s home, four duplexes are being built on the same amount of land where their house stands. A string of similar duplexes is planned for that street. On their own street, the developer has staked out lots with 30-foot widths between the existing 100-foot lots.

Halischuk and her neighbours have been told they’ll be billed at the rate of $122 per frontage foot to offset the developer’s cost of installing the sewer lines.

Plus, they’ll have to provide engineering drawings and hire their own contractor to make the connection to their home.

For the Halischuks, the total cost for their 100-foot-wide lot will likely reach $30,000, she said. Some of their neighbours, with wider lots, will face a higher tab.

“We’ve always known that development would eventually occur in the area, but we never thought it would hurt us financially like this,” Halischuk said. “We’ve been here 30 years. Some of our neighbours have been here 40 and 50 years. They’re elderly and ill and on a fixed income. How the hell can they afford this? Take out a second mortgage in your 70s? It’s so unfair.”

Halischuk said she and her neighbours feel city hall has abandoned them and others who live in similar areas, as it approved new subdivision plans without considering the financial impacts on the existing residents.

Halischuk said it was suggested to them that they could recoup their costs by subdividing their lots, but they can’t do that until they hook up and the additional costs required through the subdivision process will wipe out any profit

“You’d net pretty much nothing,” she said. “It’s not even worth it.”

Halischuk said she and her husband planned to use the equity in their home as part of their retirement, but they now feel robbed.

“How would anybody feel if you worked your whole life with this goal in mind and you get slapped with this at the end,” Halischuk said. “It’s just so unfair. The developers stand to rake in millions off these little 30-foot lots…We just can’t sit back and let these big fat cats break the backs of us little people.”

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

A local improvement vote is brought to residents to determine if they agree to share in the cost of improved services on their street. For the Ravelston West residents, it was for sewer and water lines but it could also have included paved roads, sidewalks and curbs. If a majority of the property owners approve it, then they would pay a share of cost as the work is done. If the residents reject it, they will not be billed for any of the improvements if they are later put in place — with the exception of sewer lines.

City officials said that the developer, Waterside Developments, only wanted to install a water line to a multi-family development at the end of the street and it was the councillors on the local community committee that wanted the sewer line added to the local improvement vote, likely because they foresaw that development would occur in the future.

Kimberley Halischuk and her neighbours all have wells and septic tanks. A city-supervised vote was held and 84 per cent of the residents voted against. Council upheld their vote, and passed a resolution rejecting the local improvement plan. The residents thought that was the end of the issue.

But, the developer was still required to install the water line for its own development, which it did, at its own cost.

What the residents weren’t told at the time of the vote was that if residential development were to occur — and everyone assumed it would — then provincial law would still require them to pay for their share of the sewer line.

Provincial regulations state that when a sewer line is added to a street all residents — even those on septic tanks and who don’t want it — are required to hook into the sewer line and to pay for it, within five years or before they sell their property or subdivide their land.

That’s the situation the Ravelston West residents face now: they voted against sewer lines in 2015 but two years later, find they must connect to the sewer line.

Halischuk said they want the city to give them the same exemption that was extended earlier this year to residents in a similar rural area of Templeton Avenue in Old Kildonan, on the city’s northwest side. The Templeton residents were facing far more expensive costs for a whole range of local improvements but the developer there, Genstar, ultimately decided to cover the initial cost itself.

However, city officials said the residents on Templeton are facing the same requirements and costs for sewer connections as those now faced by the Ravelston West residents.

Aldo Santin

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