Grande Prairie council has approved how the stormwater system will be paid for going forward. Rather than paying for it through taxation, the city will see the utility cost will be recovered through for both residential customers and an impervious parcel area for non-residential customers by how much they use.
Councillor Dylan Bressey says the change won’t have an impact on city coffers, and it will have to remain that way for the change to be maintained long term.
“This has been many years of work by council and administration, so I think it’s a good thing to see it closer to the finish line.” “A large priority of council in this conversation has been to remain revenue neutral. The intention of this is to make sure our stormwater system is fully funded by the people utilizing it, not to generate new revenue, and not to subsidize other municipal services,” he adds.
Bressey says public consultation was helpful when it came to the decision making process, specifically when they
“When we did have people engaging us, it was a priority that I personally heard from residents; if you do this, it has to be revenue neutral. That is a crystal clear message I heard from residents.”
“We already do this with a wide variety of services, when you apply for a development permit, there is a fee for that, when you go to Eastlink Centre, you pay for it. There already are a variety of services where the user instead of the taxpayer pays for the cost, and this is just the city applying that thinking to storm water.