Lantzville is waiting on Nanaimo to move forward on potential amendments to the water agreement between the two municipalities.
The Lantzville-Nanaimo agreement was signed in 2014 and would see water from Nanaimo sent to Lantzville for a cost of $1.3 million. The agreement, which has not yet been triggered, specifies that connections can only be made to a maximum of 225 homes in upper Lantzville, plus 50 new development connections each year for additional costs.
Lantzville Mayor Haime appeared before Nanaimo councillors in June, where he encouraged them to consider amending portions of deal, including wording that would allow existing developments to be included in the 50 new connections per year.
Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay said Lantzville’s proposed amendments appeared to be “reasonable” to him, but Nanaimo councillors seemed to be more interested in reworking the agreement entirely.
“I got the sense that some of our people may have wanted to completely gut it and start over,” he said.
The City of Nanaimo replied to the District of Lantzville with a written response in July that invited councillors from both municipalities, the Snuneymuxw First Nation and elected officials from the Regional District of Nanaimo to meet and discuss water supply within the region in the future.
Haime said the City of Nanaimo eventually scheduled a meeting with all parties listed in the letter for a date in mid-November, but cancelled the day before. He said the city’s administrative assistant informed him of the cancellation.
“The meeting got cancelled due to one of the parties not being able to attend and that was the last we heard of it,” he said. “Now, of course, they have gotten preoccupied with their event centre.”
McKay said no such meeting had ever been scheduled since sending the letter to Lantzville and there are no plans for one in the immediate future.
Lantzville is also pushing for changes to wording within the water agreement that could potentially open it up to future capital contribution costs or liabilities as well as the ability for the Snaw-Naw-As First Nation connect to Lantzville’s water system, once the agreement is triggered.
McKay said he would welcome further discussions with Lantzville on the proposed amendments, particularly around the changes relating to First Nations, but that the ball is in Lantzville’s court.
“I look forward to exploring this further because we want to bring the Snuneymuxw into this conversation, as well as, I would suggest, the Snaw-Naw-As because we are all on the same territory together,” he said.
Haime said he understands that Nanaimo councillors are focused on bigger issues in their community at the moment. He said the ability to move the discussions forward remains with Nanaimo.
“It’s in Nanaimo’s court now because they wanted to go through this water committee that hadn’t met in six years and reactivate that,” he said. “In terms of sitting down with Snuneymuxw and RDN, I have no issue with that.”