City Council Voices Support for Grant Application
Prince George, B.C. – Concerned property owners sought and received the support of Prince George City Council tonight.
Advocating on behalf of five property owners, group spokesperson Tom Wilkinson led a delegation representing 140-160 households along Lansdowne Road from Pierrory to Wiens Road who want to prevent their backyards from slipping into the Fraser River.
He told council all the properties involved are above the 200-year flood plain, but says major riverbank erosion during the freshet of 2012 is now encroaching on the property boundaries (at a rate of 7 inches per year).
The property owners hired an engineering firm to design and cost out a riverbank stabilization project and say it will cost $1.6 million to mitigate the erosion.
Wilkinson says they’d like to apply for funding available through Emergency Management BC that would see the cost shared by all three levels of government and would like the City to sign on as a proponent.
The application idea received unanimous support from council and the matter has been referred to administration for a report back to council.
In expressing his support for the motion, Councillor Albert Koehler expressed some frustration the federal government wasn’t taking a greater role.
“Why don’t the feds have to care for more of this than they do considering the land is owned by them? It’s not nice how we’ve been pressed into a corner here.”
Garth Frizzell agreed with his colleague’s concern adding jokingly, “They (feds) never pass the buck, they pass the responsibility.”
Chief Engineer Dave Dyer told council one option would be to create a local service area similar to the sewer project in the Hart neighourhood.
He also told council he wasn’t sure if there will be a grant intake available this year but said it’s important the City is prepared the next time one is.
Comments
1.6 million divided by 160 households is only $10 000. Why is the taxpayer responsible for this?
How many of these households are owned by a few people? Or are there 160 individual home owners? Either way the tax payers should not be on the hook for them buying riverfront property.. Everyone knows water erodes the river banks and the we get high flood water.. Bad decision by mayor and council.. I am sure there is some kind insurance these home owners could have bought but they didn’t…and now they want us to pay..
My lady gets very hot in our house in the summer..can I get the tax payers to buy me a air conditioner ?
I looked at the Emergency Management BC website and found a guide for “Financial Assistance for Emergency Response and Recovery Costs, A guide for BC Local Authorities,” whereby on page 42 it states that damaged and or eroded is not applicable.
This issue doesn’t seem like a emergency to me, because no property has been damaged yet. If you can insure yourself against loss or mitigate your circumstances, I can’t see how you could possibly get money out of this program. Maybe I’m not finding the program that these people have? It also states that in order to be reimbursed for losses, the municipality has to demonstrate that it owns the property that was damaged. Seems like a non starter to me, which is good, because I don’t think the City should be involved.
damaged or eroded land that is…
Must be nice! life is about choices. I would love to live by a river but chose not to for that simple fact. Living there is a personal risk that these people chose to take. I shouldn’t have to bail them out because they lacked the common sense of investing their future in a high risk real estate.
This stupid spending has to stop!!!!!
Same old policy at City council eh? Just hand out the money, it just grows on trees. This is a neighbourhood expense, should not be put on the rest of the taxpayers.
The province did a project like this for about the same price along the Shelly river front east of town in 2006. Province paid 100% of the cost for those home owners under a flood mitigation program at the time. I think the program only applied to rural residents though outside of city limits.
Something just does not sit right with me on this…Looking at the application – it is almost 2 years to the day since it was sealed/stamped.
Did the people of the area not approach city hall before this time? One would think so if the spca, treatment centre etc. is mentioned in the report.
Did city planners/engineers not think this was worthy of protecting city property?
I think there is more to this story than what meets the eye here.
This is all private land. This is the landowners responsibility right now.
The people of this city should be asking more questions…..
I would suggest that the space between the private land and the river would be the responsibility of the different levels of Government. If they took the initiative and looked after the erosion of the rivers in the greater Prince George area, this problem would have been solved years ago.
Past administration sat on their butts and spent money on all sorts of useless projects and let the rivers erode. Both sides of the Nechako from the Cameron St., Bridge East to the Railway bridge is a prime example. Also the West side of the Fraser from Fort George Park to Paddle Wheel Park needs to have work done,.
Whining about the people who located in this area is fine for the short term, however if nothing is done then these house will fall into the River, and the next line of houses will then be facing the river.
We need to solve the problem like they do in all other Cities that are run by people who are not afraid to take the initiative .
Time for Prince George to actually get some basic things done.
Have a nice day.
They could just dump old concrete rip-rap on the banks. Problem solved! But I wouldn’t doubt it if they tried to use Nice rocks at an added cost.
They us concrete rip-rap West of PG on the Nechako, and East on the Fraser around Shelly, but cant seem to get their heads around fixing the rivers inside the City limits.
The City of PG used the EMBC program.
To partial fund the same type of project.
At the City’s pump house #605 on the Nechako River.
Just by Fish Trap island.
Nobody seemed to complain when they cut down all the beetle
killed trees , to put fire guards around communities.
After all didn’t we chose to live in a forested area.
The City mentioned a “Local Area Service”
Which means that the properties that benefit from
the said project if application is successful.
Would have to pay back the city share over 20 years.
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