The town of Strathmore is taking a good step forward to prevent some of the flooding the downtown sees each year.
On Wednesday, the town council approved the reallocation of non-levy surplus funds from the Westmount Main Upsizing Project to the Ridge Road Storm Sewer Project to allow for the midified sore of both projects to proceed.
That means the town will be moving forward with two projects aimed at reducing storm water downtown.
Mayor Pat Fule said to the infrastructure department staff, “I'm always impressed that you and your department find ways to to do these huge projects and keep the town moving, and still be very efficient in your use of the dollars and pennies that we obviously need and your work with the provincial government to get some money is also very commendable.”
“This is a good news story and in these times of supply chain problems and skyrocketing costs on a lot of things. this is a good news story for these two major projects that we desperately need,” said Fule.
Councillor Denise Peterson explained, “As somebody who lives in the downtown South and has watched in the last three succeeding years that flooding, getting worse and worse and the damage is escalating. The struggles to maintain existing infrastructure and the challenges to businesses have been increasingly difficult.”
“Given that it's not something that's going away, I'm really appreciative of this solution,” she said.
The projects were originally approved for the Highway 1 Storm Crossing (originally titled Ridge Road Storm Sewer) for $434,000 as well as the Westmount Main Upsizing Project for $790,000.
The anticipated cos for the Highway 1 project is $552,000 with Alberta Transportation paying $148,000 leaving an additional $30,000 in the budget.
Because the Highway 1 Storm Crossing will be built within the Alberta Transportation right of way, Alberta Transportation has agreed to pay for 33 per cent of the construction costs, up to a maximum of $200,000.
For the Westmount Main Upsizing project the anticipated cost is $435,000 with approved budget of $790,000 leaving a surplus of $355,000. There are $248,000 in unspent off-site levies, leaving $106,500 in budget available.
The Westmount Project was planned to be funded about 70 per cent through Off-Site Levies.
According to the town, Off Site Levy funds must be returned to their account and cannot be used for other non-Levy projects. That leaves about $100,000 that can be transferred to cover the budget for the The Highway 1 Storm Crossing.
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