Kincardine gives pre-budget approval to fixing municipal parking lot

Finally, at long last, after years of waiting, the municipal parking lot east of Queen Street, will be fixed this year.

During budget talks, in committee-of-the-whole Monday afternoon (Jan. 25), Kincardine council gave pre-budget approval to this capital project, at a cost of $777,500, funded through reserves.

"This is my pet project and it's been on the books for about 25 years," said councillor Maureen Couture.

A proposal by municipal engineer B.M. Ross and Associates was presented to council last year, to reconstruct the parking lot, install a watermain, improve draining and parking, and install landscaping and lights, to the tune of about $1-million.

However, that has been scaled back to include just the watermain replacement between Queen Street and Princes Street North ($85,000), pulverize and pave the parking lot, and improve the drainage behind the stores on Queen Street.

Mayor Anne Eadie said the revised cost includes the price for the watermain which will come from water reserves. The remaining cost will come from capital, lifecycle and parking reserves.

Councillor Gordon Campbell objected because he said the design is flawed.

However, chief administrative officer Murray Clarke suggested a meeting between the engineering team and Campbell and any other interested councillors, to discuss the design of the parking lot project.

Clarke said if council wants to proceed with this project in 2016, it should consider approving it at that meeting. Then, allow time for a meeting with the engineering team, and put the project to tender.

Councillor Randy Roppel suggested debenturing the project, rather than paying for it from reserves, so it doesn't burden the taxpayer.

Couture said the cost would be more of a burden to taxpayers if debenturing, because they are on the hook for principal and interest to pay it back.

"The cost was originally $1-million," she said, "but that was reduced by $96,000. And there could be more savings after the meeting with the engineers. We already had $332,000 budgeted last year for this project.

Committee-of-the-whole agreed to give the project pre-budget approval, hold a meeting with the engineering team to finalize the design, and then proceed to tender.

That was later endorsed by council.

During the budget meeting, council debated other capital projects and the operating budget. It began the meeting with a proposed 9.1-per-cent increase in the municipal portion of taxes, and managed to whittle that down to 6.37 per cent.

Once combined with the Bruce County levy increase of 2.66 per cent, and estimating no change in the education tax, the overall tax increase would be 4.03 per cent.

The next budget meeting is Feb. 8 at 5 p.m., at the municipal administrative centre.