Why is City of Powell River mayor Dave Formosa giving Townsite residents false hope by suggesting the possibility of a second location for the city's proposed wastewater treatment plant?
At the city's committee of the whole meeting on January 25, Formosa raised the idea of considering a second location to the south of where the treatment plant is currently being planned.
Not only is the provincial grant for the treatment plant specific to the site in lower Townsite below Larch and Laburnum avenues, the second choice being entertained by Formosa is still owned by PRSC, a partnership between the city and Tla'amin Nation. The city already bought the proposed 10-acre site from PRSC last year for $575,000.
Pursuing a second site not already owned by the city at such a late point in the process is a waste of time and money and could jeopardize the whole provincial funding process.
Residents of Townsite, especially those living on Larch and Laburnum, have every right to be concerned and upset about the location of the wastewater treatment plant, but disrupting the process now in order to keep it out of their neighbourhood could backfire for the whole city.
We can all agree the public-consultation process conducted by the city was not as high-profile or continuous as residents would have liked, but the fact is it did happen, and there were many chances over the years to suggest and pursue an alternate location.
Here's the rub: when you buy a property, you don't buy what happens around it. If someone decides to build a high-rise or an industrial complex (or a wastewater treatment plant) in front, behind or next to your property, there's not much you can do about it other than move somewhere else or live with it.
Perhaps the residents who are complaining the loudest now should have done so much earlier in the process when a different location was something that wouldn't completely derail provincial funding and add additional costs to an already $30-million project.
By even broaching the subject of changing locations at this point, Formosa is only inflaming an already unfortunate situation where some Townsite residents are seemingly unable to accept the inevitable. That wastewater treatment plant is going in that spot.
