Residents enraged about utilidor switchover

GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Dozens of Iqaluit ratepayers forced to pay thousands of dollars to change their water and plumbing systems want to know why they can’t get a financial hand from government like their neighbours did three years ago.

During a meeting with city hall administration on Feb. 27, property owners in Lower Base district complained that either the City of Iqaluit or the Government of Nunavut are breaking their promise of subsidizing a mandatory utilidor program in their neighbourhood.

“It is unacceptable to me to be treated differently,” resident Paul Landry said during the packed meeting in council chambers. “Why should I be a second-class citizen when I pay the same amount of taxes?”

The Lower Base utilidor program remains a political flashpoint more than three years after city hall first told 89 property owners they would have to pay up to $20,000 each to connect to a newly built utilidor system. Municipal government would pay $1.7 million to assemble the main parts of the utilidor system.

After residents complained about being forced to pay, about four years ago, the Government of Nunavut stepped in with a $300,000 grant, which covered some expenses in the first phase of the project, less than half of the buildings in the area.

Home owners who weren’t picked for the first phase of the project claim the government grant – which the City of Iqaluit claims has dried up – was supposed to be for everyone.

“That would be a breach of a memorandum of understanding,” resident Lisa Ipeelie said of the lack of subsidy for property owners still receiving trucked water and sewage services.

Ipeelie also questioned why city hall wanted to finish the project three years ahead of schedule. The change means homeowners listed for the second phase of the project will have to find more money than their neighbours, and do so much earlier than they had planned.

Anyone refusing to pay will see their water and sewage bills raised, to reflect the increased cost of servicing their house with trucks in an area that has switched to utilidors.

Ipeelie suggested stepping up the schedule will leave some property owners unable to pay by the new deadline of Dec. 31, 2007.

Brad Sokach, Iqaluit’s director of engineering, said administration decided to speed up the utilidor schedule after drawing up this year’s budget. Budget figures show that trucking water and sewage costs nearly three times as much as the utilidors.

In an interview after the meeting, Sokach said he reviewed which neighbourhood should be weaned off truck service, and found the Lower Base’s relatively dense layout will give Iqaluit “more bang for our buck” than other options.

Besides saving money for the city’s budget, Sokach said administration also pushed to accelerate the utilidor program to cut down on truck traffic in Iqaluit’s downtown area around the Lower Base district.

“We don’t have a very good safety record, as I’m sure you all know,” Sokach said during the meeting. “[So] we’re trying to get trucks off the road.”

Shawn Maley, assistant deputy minister of the community government and transportation department, said the Government of Nunavut only promised $600,000 for the first phase of the project, including the grant for residents, and has not committed to further funding.

However, Maley added that the government would consider giving another grant, pending a funding proposal from the city.

“They need to submit a proposal and we need to look at it,” he said.