Questions Surrounding the South Sewer Project Circa 2022 and KIP aka Union Bay Estates

Previous posts about sewer south of Courtenay. https://allthingsunionbay.com/?s=south+sewer

Remember, KIP promised for years that they would build an expandable sewage system that Royston and Union Bay could hook into at the cost of the landowners. We were assured that it was in the MDA from 2010 and it was a section of the MDA that remained the same when it was revised in 2017. Right after agreeing to the MDA in 2017, KIP turned around and made an application in 2018 to dump 1875 cubic metres of treated sewage into Hart Creek daily during the wet months. Mere months after signing an agreement that KIP would build an expandable sewage system.

Also, I was under the impression one of the reasons the last grant was turned down was because there was a developer involved. Why would there be grant money to offset the cost of the developer and why are they still talking about working with KIP – have they learned nothing since 2006? There hasn’t been a CVRD Board willing to stand up to this developer and instead let him screw around year after year no matter what he signs. Is Kip involved in this new grant application?

Now it appears that the language of the MDA doesn’t mean what we were told even though that section of the document remained the same. The CVRD refuses to provide a straight forward answer as to whether they will enforce the wording of the MDA with regards to the expandable sewage system the developer was to build. And no one has ever claimed the developer would pay for the expandable units to accommodate Royston and Union Bay. We all knew it wasn’t going to be free, but the developer was to build a system that could be expandable. Now looks like we are going to be subsidizing Union Bay Estates. We are suckers.

This is a 2 minute excerpt of the CVRD Nov. 30, 2021, webinar on the new version of the South Sewer Project. Listen to the questions asked and the answers provided, especially the one about the MDA, and compare it to what is stated officially on the CVRD website. I think it was at this meeting when discussing KIP’s sewage they commented it was only 38 strata lots. No – it’s 512 connections for commercial and residential.

Here’s a link to the CVRD page for information: https://www.comoxvalleyrd.ca/sewerextension

This is what it states about Union Bay Estates aka Kensington Island Properties regarding sewage.

What amount of money is a “comparable contribution”?

So the 2016 failed South Sewer Project didn’t have actual plans for putting the piping in the ground and lift stations, yet wanted landowners to start paying right away even though there was no guarantee the project would proceed to completion and the money would be lost if it went belly up part way through.

When you look at the history – how is it that there is no clear plan as to where and at what cost? Study after study and yet there are no answers regarding costs. The last plan had less than a 1000 properties bearing the costs of the initial stage.