The following article appeared in the January 31 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
The city would have to raise taxes by about 18 per cent to pay off its infrastructure gap in a single year.
Of course, that would never happen.
But it goes a long way toward illustrating just how big the problem is.
Councillors heard last night about the problem facing cities across the country –– aging infrastructure that no one can afford to replace. In Guelph, it would cost about $25 million to bring all of the city’s infrastructure up to snuff.
That’s at least $2.2 million more than it was just three years ago.
And the price is going nowhere but up.
“I would suggest even if you put the $25 million in, you’re going to be behind because of inflation,” city engineer Rick Henry said.
The city gets about $1.3 million in revenue for every percentage point increase in taxes, meaning taxes would have to go up 18 or more per cent to fix the gap.
“That’s why we’re asking the feds and the province to get in on the act and be helpful,” Councillor Karl Wettstein said.
The numbers are just estimates. The city’s working on a more accurate sum. It’s a tricky exercise, and one that all Ontario municipalities need to have completed by 2009. It will change the way cities make their budgets, by including infrastructure as it’s used up, rather than as it’s purchased. Then it will be very clear just how much of the city’s infrastructure is more than used up, councillors heard.
“We will see the assets that have nominal value, whose valuable life has expired,” said Christine Scrimgeour, a consultant helping the city with the project. “What is showing up in all my municipalities is that we’re not spending enough money on infrastructure. We’re simply not spending on assets we’re not looking at, the ones that are underground.”
But even when under the new budgeting scheme, it’ll be tough to say just how fast the problem needs to be dealt with.
“How soon, other than yesterday, do we need to act on this?” Coun. Ian Findlay asked.
There’s no way to tell, Henry explained. Much of the cost of infrastructure — asphalt for roads and plastic for modern pipes — depends on the cost of oil, something that’s impossible to predict. And technology changes, sometimes making it easier and cheaper to maintain infrastructure.
Part of it includes figuring out just how much the city owns, and the numbers are staggering.
In 2007, Guelph had:
$360 million in roads — 510 kilometres of them;
$410 million in water assets, including 524 kilometres of pipe;
$530 million in waste water hardware;
$320 million in storm water, including 422 kilometres of pipe.
About three-quarters of that is less than 50 years old. But it’s the stuff built before the 1950s that causes the big problems, said Don Kudo, the city’s manager of infrastructure.
And climate change is, in some ways, changing the game. Existing rainfall models are accurate overall, Kudo said. But those models don’t account for the flash storms we’ve been having recently as a result of climate change.
That’s led to several recent water main breaks that stopped traffic on busy London, Ont. streets, and a 30-metre hole that formed under Finch Avenue in North York, Ont. after a big storm a couple of years ago, and took months to fix.
Putting in the new accounting procedures will cost the city about $800,000, said Susan Aram, from the city’s finance department.
NUMBERS GAME A REAL GAPPER
Just how big is the gap? (2007 figures)
Roads: $8.4 million
Bridges: 0
Storm sewers: $5.8 million
Water: $1 million
Waste water: $3 million
City-owned buildings: about $4 million
Equipment: $2-3 million