Infrastructure

In town, some of our water, sewer and road system components are nearing 70 years old and must be monitored for possible deterioration and need for replacement. Rural irrigations pumps and pipelines were installed in the 1970s, 50 or more years ago. Properly-scheduled maintenance and upgrades are typically less expensive than emergency replacement after a failure. 

Some water, sewer and road components will need to be expanded as well in order to accommodate anticipated residential and commercial growth.

Built Amenities

Oliver is fortunate to have wide variety of parks, recreation and cultural amenities. However, these also require ongoing care and maintenance, such as the major upgrades to the 50-year-old Oliver Arena that were recently undertaken. Additional enhancements to Lions Park were also recently under consideration. 

Oliver is fortunate to have a cooperative relationship with the RDOS, where shared amenities such as the Arena, Pool, major parks and Venables Theatre are co-funded by taxpayers in the Town and the surrounding Rural Oliver Area “C”. Maintaining these partnerships is essential.

Natural Amenities

Much of our valley-bottom wetland habitat was lost during channelizing of the Okanagan River that took place in the 1950s. While some of this has been restored such as the ORRI project just north of Town, it is important to inventory and protect remaining habitat areas. This is being done through development restrictions and development permit requirements in the Official Community Plan. The challenge is establishing sensible regulations which provide the needed protection, while not being overly-restrictive on development options.

Another issue gaining attention as our climate heats up is water conservation. We have all noticed watering restrictions placed on Oliver's domestic water services over the past few years. Based on recent reports to council, these restrictions are designed to make sure our domestic water wells are able to meet pumping demands, without drawing down the ground water level in our wells too much to interfere with pump operations. 

Besides regulatory restrictions, the Town is exploring tiered domestic water pricing to further encourage compliance with any watering restrictions.

With near-record, low-water levels in the Okanagan River and valley lakes, conservation attention may one day turn to irrigation water systems, as it has in Vernon. However, so far, there have been no use restrictions placed on Oliver’s agricultural irrigation systems, which provide water to irrigate approximately 5,200 acres of farm land. Customers in these systems can currently irrigate as often and for as long as they want, restricted only by their physical flow control devices, which allow up to 10 gallons per minute water flow per acre of land, 24 hours per day. 

Unfortunately, because Oliver's agricultural water use is not currently metered, there are no easy price incentives available for farmers to improve efficiency and actually reduce their water use.

Cost Control and Allocation

Nobody likes taxes, or development fees for that matter. However, it obviously all costs money. 

If fees and taxes simply rise by the current rate of inflation, they would be easy to justify and likely well-supported. After all, without at least matching inflation, the actual value of revenues would fall each year, inevitably resulting in a reduction of services or even closure of certain amenities. 

Unfortunately, like house construction, the cost to repair, replace and expand infrastructure and other municipal amenities has gone up much faster than the published Consumer Price Index values. Because these facilities are at the core of municipal responsibility, this inflation has unavoidably increased fees and taxes accordingly. 

While some grant funding is sometimes available, property owners will pay the bulk of these costs in fees and taxes. For example, on January 14 of this year, the Times-Chronicle reported: “The Town of Oliver finalized a five-year plan that sees rate increases across the board, including water and sewer utility rates and parcel taxes, pushing an average increase of $244 to $1,372.10 for an average home this year, up 21.6 per cent over last year.”

As new growth happens, some of these increases will be picked up by the expanded taxbase. In addition, the Town does have a Development Cost Charge Bylaw, which imposes development charges on new development, specifically to pay for new infrastructure capacity that is needed to accommodate the added demands they will place on our systems. These charges will also increase as costs go up. 

Unfortunately, development fees are often criticized by the development community and by some sectors of senior governments, who see them as a deterrent to new growth, and a factor in housing cost increases. Without them, however, the general fees and taxes across the municipality would go up even more to pay for any expansion.

Land Use and Development

There is an understandable desire to create attractive, new employment and housing opportunities in Oliver. New development provides employment and housing options, while also allowing Oliver to spread its operational costs across a broader tax base. 

However, new growth sometimes requires expanded infrastructure. Sometimes new development will noticeably change the character of existing neighbourhoods, against the wishes of some existing residents.

The Official Community Plan, currently being updated, attempts to take these concerns into consideration through a series of public open houses and surveys that have been undertake in the past several months.

Bottom Line 

The bottom line is that I am not seeking a term on council because it will be easy. When faced with an urgent infrastructure repair, it is never easy to choose between raising taxes, reducing other services, or deferring a popular project that may culminate in a fancy ribbon-cutting photo-op. However, these are common dilemmas for a municipal council to face. 

Instead, I am running for council because I am aware of these challenges. I hope to share that awareness with incoming members of council who may be new to local government administration and policy-setting.

Comments or questions? Please complete the form on my Contact Page.