Upper Nootka Street residents will be petitioning the Powell River Regional District board to establish a servicing agreement to pave a half-kilometre of the gravel street in their neighbourhood.
Surfacing the stretch of unpaved road near Powell River’s city limits has been a longstanding issue for Electoral Area B residents who access their homes using city streets. Over the years, residents have appeared before, and submitted petitions to, the region’s governments, but the street remains unpaved.
Local resident Igor Skobkarev has lived in the area for the past two years and said he feels recent advocacy has been paying off.
"This is one of those gaps that needs to be closed," said Skobkarev. "I'll sleep better when it's all done and the road is paved.”
Last year, Skobkarev gathered 160 signatures from city and rural residents and currently has an online petition open to have the road paved.
Electoral Area B alternate director Al Rebane met with Skobkarev on August 9 and explained how the area’s residents could ask the regional district to create a new service for resurfacing the road.
Rebane estimates surfacing the gravel road with chip seal, a common option for rural road surfaces, will cost approximately $70,000. Area residents would provide $46,000 through taxation with the remaining $24,000 coming from the city.
"We need to put our end up," said Rebane, “then bring the city to the table.”
City director of infrastructure Tor Birtig said that given the high traffic on the road, he does not think that a chip seal surface will stand up.
“Normally we use the chip seal on low-volume roadways,” said Birtig. “With the heavy traffic on Nootka it wouldn’t be my recommendation to go that way.”
Rebane said a petition signed by a majority of the 44 property owners in the upper Nootka area supporting establishment of a service to provide two-thirds of the cost to pave Nootka is required. Due to the way regional districts are legislated, they are unable to take money collected for one purpose and use it to pay for something else, he added.
Birtig said if outside funding was provided to trial the surface he would not be against it. He estimates that paving the 500 metres to a regular standard with a curb could cost approximately $375,000.
On July 16, City of Powell River mayor Dave Formosa told approximately 50 Nootka residents gathered at a community rally on a corner next to the intersection of Westview and Manson avenues that if they raised one-third of the project costs and the regional district put forward another one-third, he would try to convince city council to come up with the remaining third.
Rebane said that because the road is within the city limits, it is fair for Nootka residents to pay the majority of the cost. He added that he would like to see the project included in the 2018 budget.
"It sounds good to me," said Skobkarev.
Skobkarev added that he supports canvasing his neighbours with the petition and asking their preference on what the timeframe of borrowing should be. He said he expects only two or three neighbours to oppose the tax increase.
Birtig said the road and BC Hydro power poles would need to be moved because they are not centred in the right-of-way. If the road were paved without first moving it, he said, then when development proceeds later the road would have to be ripped up and moved over to accommodate installing sewer lines.
Once a Nootka agreement, similar to the regional district’s Myrtle Pond and Lund sewer agreements, is in place it will allow the regional district to borrow money for the project.
