Taxpayers could be looking at an alternative-approval process to borrow $90 million for a “one and done” project to build a new fleet maintenance facility and administration building at Nanaimo's public works yard.
The new proposal was one of three Nanaimo Operations Centre plans presented by city staff at a governance and priorities committee meeting Monday, June 24.
The first option, considered status quo, was the same one that was the subject of two failed AAPs in October and January. It would involve borrowing $48 million to build the first phase of the facility including a fleet maintenance building, upgraded stormwater management, a multi-use trail along Labieux Road and an energy refit at the adjacent Vancouver Island Emergency Response Academy fire training tower. Additional AAPs would then be needed to borrow to complete future project phases, including construction of a new administration building.
A second option put forward this week is a scaled-back, multi-phase proposal to borrow $44 million to build just the fleet maintenance building and upgrade the stormwater system, with the administration building to come later.
A third option new proposal, coined the “one and done” by city councillors, would borrow $90 million to build a new fleet maintenance building and administration building simultaneously and upgrade stormwater management.
“The big difference here is the fleet maintenance building and the administration building are, sort of, merged together spatially and placed at the north end of the yard,” said Poul Rosen, director of engineering.
He said with the other two proposals, the fleet maintenance building was placed at the south end of the public works yard to keep noise away from administration offices and crew spaces and separate heavy fleet vehicle movements from light vehicles and pedestrians.
“Placing them spatially close to each other ... you can do it all as one project, so it would be a pretty big project,” Rosen said.
The scenario provides some certainty that fleet maintenance and administration buildings, which will combine public works and parks operations, will be completed in time to limit inflation costs, according to the staff report, which projects inflation savings of $10 million. A new AAP could be held in September or October. Borrowing funding for any of the project options could be repaid solely through property taxes or a blend of taxation and drawing from the city’s general asset management fund, reserve money set aside to replace aging infrastructure. If fully funded through property taxes, the cost to taxpayers would be $139 per year, the report projected.
Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog said while the previous alternative approval processes had their difficulties, he wondered why, "if that was the workable and sensible approach," there were now more options on the table. He was curious to know staff’s preferred option.
Bill Sims, general manager of engineering and public works, said council asked staff to consider options and they wanted to make sure other possibilities weren’t discounted.
"Because we created a master plan, it doesn’t mean that we can’t pause and reconsider it ... The question mark around the future financing for the admin building put [the third option] forward, to combine the two, as a potential,” Sims said.
He said staff is conscious of the challenges the project “brought forward to the community” and the need for a functional public works yard is balanced against available budgets, financial reserves and future taxes. He suggested the first option was still preferred “if we know that in the future the admin building is coming next in the mix of all the other capital projects.”
Coun. Tyler Brown, who previously opposed the project, credited staff’s work to clarify information about it during the second AAP with reversing his position and motioned council proceed with the status quo option.
“I have the level of confidence now to support the project, as scoped,” Brown said. “Again [I] appreciate the options and different iterations and I’d be pleased to support getting those bylaws prepared and going through that process again and hearing back from the community on that, one way or the other.”
Krog expressed concern about borrowing $90 million which he said would limit the city’s ability to borrow for other projects and its ability to deal with emergencies from failed aging infrastructure and asked if council was willing to go to referendum if an AAP for the $90-million option were to fail.
Coun. Ian Thorpe also supported the status quo option and said council should “have the courage to stay the course and say what we proposed was a good project and it was going to be done in a good way.”
Other members of council, however, including Coun. Hilary Eastmure, supported the third option.
“I think rolling that together with the admin building makes so much more sense and getting it done with the one AAP for the future borrowing,” she said.
Coun. Ben Geselbracht said the third option was less confusing for the public who would otherwise be subjected to multiple AAPs to fund multiple construction phases, and Coun. Erin Hemmens also said she appreciated the “one and done” concept.
“I think a lot of confusion and uncertainty came from the idea that we were having phased borrowing over years and that that was an uncertain number,” Hemmens said.
The committee voted to recommend proceeding with the third option with Krog and councillors Ian Thorpe and Janice Perrino opposed and Sheryl Armstrong and Brown absent for the vote.
