Alternative Approval Process for Nanaimo Operations Centre sparks opposition

Homeowner Noni Bartlett is campaigning against a proposal for the City of Nanaimo to take out a $48.5 million loan to fund the first phase of a new operations centre. Photo: Mick Sweetman / CHLY 101.7FM

This is the final week for residents of the City of Nanaimo to file their opposition to the city taking out a loan for up to $48.5 million for the first phase of a new operations centre.

The first phase of a new operations centre would replace the public works yard built in the 1960s and cover foundational work for a new fleet maintenance facility, stormwater management infrastructure at the yard and at Fire Rescue Station number two, converting the Fire Training Tower to burn natural gas fires instead of wood, and a new trial to completed the circle of trails at Beban Park.

Future phases would include storage buildings, heavy fleet equipment areas, administrative buildings, staff parking, fueling stations and supply building renovations.

All together the four-phase project is estimated to cost a total of $164.5 million, though that estimate could change.

The approval for the loan is going through what’s known as an Alternative Approval Process (AAP) instead of a city-wide referendum, where least 10 per cent of eligible voters — or 7,799 people — have to fill out a form against the borrowing bylaw and return it to City Hall by 4:30 p.m. on Friday, November 3.

If that threshold is reached the borrowing bylaw will be brought back to council for consideration of what to do next.

Local homeowner Noni Bartlett says that the city should have run a referendum on the proposal.

“In my opinion, they should have run a referendum in order to get the citizens to approve of them borrowing $160 million for a project to build a new operations centre,” she said. “Instead — and I'm not sure if it was intentional or incidental — but they broke the project up into four phases and they are looking to borrow the first $48,000,500 to start phase one.”

Bartlett says that she only found out about the loan last week when she saw a post on Facebook about it, and has been busy pounding the pavement on the issue since then.

“My experience as I've been canvassing citizens around Nanaimo, mostly at Beban Park when they were leaving the home show, was that they didn't simply didn't know about it.

Nanaimo Mayor Lenard Krog says that a new operations centre is needed and the amount of the project is reasonable.

“Look, it will have a modest impact on people's taxes because the city of Nanaimo's debt is actually quite small relative to other municipalities,” he said.

Krog says that the buildings in the public works yard aren’t seismically safe and need to be replaced.

“During an earthquake, the buildings would collapse and we wouldn't have access to that equipment, let alone the risk of death and injury to the people who work there,” Krog said “The offices out there consist of a bunch of ATCO trailers plunked together, and it's been that way for a very long time.”

Krog says that he supports the rights of taxpayers like Bartlett to voice their opposition to the project “But I think it's necessary, I think it's the right thing to do and it's good for the public interest.”

Nanaimo City Councillor Tyler Brown agrees that a new operations centre is needed.

“Without a doubt, we need a new public works yard,” he said. “Those facilities need to be upgraded. They're just not modern, they're very difficult for our staff to work in and accommodate how big our city is.”

However, Brown was opposed to the AAP and has concerns about the scope of the project, which he said would be the largest capital project ever undertaken by the city.

“As presented by staff, to me as a decision maker, I can't go to the public, and I can't answer your questions with a degree of confidence that I can say I voted in favor of this, because of these reasons: I believe the project has been scoped correctly, X, Y & Z has been accounted for and that's why these costs are there,” he said. “I don't have that information, nor do I think the rest of council does, nor do I think that's been presented to the public.”

Krog says that the rising cost of construction material means increased costs for the city but it has to ensure that the city can provide basic services and infrastructure to residents.

“People say ‘oh, how can you raise our taxes so much when inflation isn't that number?’” he said. “As I always remind everybody, the city doesn't buy a lot of groceries, we're not buying pineapples and grapes and parsnips, but we buy a lot of concrete and steel and have to hire a lot of contractors and the costs of those things are up in a significant way.”

According to the City of Nanaimo website, an AAP costs less and requires fewer resources than a referendum and lasts a minimum of 30 days. If held a referendum was estimated to cost $297,000 and would take 10 city staff to run taking them off their regular duties.

Bartlet’s husband works as a lawyer who is helping collect forms against the AAP at his office. On Monday, Bartlet says that an elderly woman brought in her form against the proposal.

“She informed our secretary that right now, her property taxes are costing her five months of her income. And she doesn't know how long she's going to be able to live in the house that she's lived in for decades,” Bartlett said.

More information on the Nanaimo Operations Centre or to download a form for the Alternative Approval Process, can be found on the city’s website.

Funding Note: This story was produced with funding support from the Local Journalism Initiative, administered by the Community Radio Fund of Canada.