North Shore residents to bear brunt of cost overruns for wastewater treatment plant

Homeowners across Metro Vancouver will be on the hook for massive cost overruns on a new North Shore wastewater treatment plant, but the burden will not be shared equally across the region.

At a contentious Metro Vancouver board meeting, most mayors and councillors chose to shield their own constituents and stick North Shore residents with hefty annual bills.

"I can't express more seriously how disappointed I am with a number of our colleagues,” West Vancouver Mayor Mike Sager said after the vote.

Originally scheduled to open in 2020 at a cost of $500 million, the price tag for the plant has ballooned to $3.86 billion – and it won't be operational until at least 2030.

Faced with several options that would have seen the cost divided more evenly across the region, time and again councillors rejected them.

It took seven votes to settle on an option that will see North Shore households billed $590 per year for the next 30 years.

Households elsewhere will pay $80 to $150 per year, depending on where in the region they are located.

"We are disappointed but we'll move forward and reflect and then determine next steps of how we can relieve the North Shore taxpayers of this impact,” said North Vancouver District Coun. Lisa Muri.

The vote had some calling for changes to the way major infrastructure projects are paid for.

"I think it speaks to our structure and we need to seriously look at how we're going to do things differently moving forward,” City of North Vancouver Mayor Linda Buchanan said.

The North Shore municipalities may look to higher levels of government to offset some of the costs but for now it is homeowners who will get the bill.

"We have plenty of people on fixed incomes, people who simply will not be able to afford the costs that flow from this mistake,” Sager said.