“At what point are we putting so much money on a piece of land that it’s so expensive to develop that it’s not feasible to do it.”
That was the concern raised by Councillor David Lopez following the July 22 City of Lloydminster council meeting.
At the council meeting, administration was asking that council commit $90,000 from the Sale of City Land and Building Reserve and an additional $90,000 from the Stormwater Capital Reserve to the Lake K Clay Stockpile Relocation project.
Council was also asked to increase the contract amount of Arnold Earthmoving Ltd. of Saskatoon, SK in the amount of $177,236.
The request was made due to the presence of excessive topsoil material found within the project site, the lands between 73 Ave. and 75 Ave. south of 29 St.
The contract extension would allow for the import of additional clay material from the Lake K Clay stockpile to make up for the deficit in material.
Since the initiation of the Lake K Clay Stockpile Relocation project, city administration has identified an increase in existing topsoil volume which was stripped from the project site.
“The vast majority of this dirt is from the storm water pond, and that storm water pond we needed to do to move water through the city at an effective and efficient manner,” said Councillor Jonathan Torresan. “I saw some stuff about moving a pile of dirt as if it wasn’t an important pile of dirt to have created in the first place.”
“At the end of the day it does have to go somewhere, and to use it in land development and have a future benefit to the city is the most ideal.”
A statement from the council agenda says, “by using the stockpiled clay from the Lake K delineation project, other City capital projects can benefit through the use of owner supplied material.”
During discussion following the request, Lopez raised several concerns regarding the additional funding requested for this site.
“It’s a project that we keep spending money on for land that we want to develop in the future, if a piece of land isn’t feasible to build on sometimes, we have to look at it and go this is just a wetland or something else.”
“Any other developer, if they had to do that, that’s a million dollars they would have had to already put into the land.”
Council voted in favour of committing the additional funds and increasing the contract amount of Arnold Earthmoving in the amount of $177,236.
Lopez voted against both decisions but says he will support the decision council made.
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