Fine tuning a water supply deal with the City of Nanaimo is top of list for Lantzville’s new council.
The District of Lantzville will seek revisions to a water supply agreement with Nanaimo in the next five months, according to a list of strategic priorities recently released by the district.
Lantzville politicians, four elected last summer, revised strategic priorities for the term in late December, with revisions ranked at the top, followed by communication, engagement and transparency and an economic development strategy.
The district has long grappled with the question of where to get additional water. Some private wells are contaminated and limited water has been blamed for the district’s stagnant growth. In 2005 it signed a memorandum of understanding with Nanaimo and nine years later inked a supply deal that would allow water to be piped to 225 homes in upper Lantzville at a $1.3-million connection cost.
It also allowed for 50 new development hookups each year and the potential for another 211 homes on private wells to connect in the future.
But while an agreement with Nanaimo “in some form” is recognized as advantageous, there are challenges, according to Lantzville Mayor Colin Haime, who sees the need for the 50 new development connections to instead go to existing residents, and changed wording in section 14 of the deal on capital costs for Nanaimo’s future water system.
“The original goal of even entering into discussions with Nanaimo was to secure water for existing residents first,” said Haime.
He doesn’t believe revisiting the agreement will put the document in jeopardy. Even with its flaws, it’s a signed agreement, he said.
Neither does he anticipate the agreement will be used right away with Lantzville looking at the possibility to expand its connections through improvements to its own infrastructure.
Coun. Bob Colclough, who’d like to see the same revisions, said Nanaimo will either say yes or no to the changes, and if it’s no, the agreement will stay the way it is.
Neither change has an effect on the City of Nanaimo, said Colclough, who believes the reference to connections for new development was just an error and more likely means to say it was for existing residents and “not for new development.”
Nanaimo Mayor Bill McKay wasn’t previously aware Lantzville wanted revisions to the agreement and couldn’t say what his council’s appetite would be.
“Let’s let them start the conversation and we’ll see what they have to say,” McKay said.