Taking the cap off of capital projects
By Timothy Schafer Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Over $17 million worth of capital projects are planned for 2023 as the City sets its sights on completing some of its biggest ongoing sites.
There will be a total of $17,749,078 spent on City of Nelson capital projects this year — with 63 per cent coming from reserves and 37 per cent coming from grants — and several multi-year projects are expected to be completed this year.
City chief financial officer Chris Jury said the cash will be on hand to put to rest several projects that have been on the ledger for some time.
“It’s a fairly ambitious capital plan for 2023 … and we are going to be seeing a lot of our major capital projects coming to completion, which is exciting,” he said during the budget open house at City Hall on March 30. “We are entering 2023 in a strong financial position, with reduced inflationary pressure.”
The City will be wrapping up the pier project at the end of Hall Street this year — after working on it the previous two years — with a remaining budget of $2.2 million. Around $1.5 million of the $4.6-million project was grant funded.
The Civic Centre project will begin this year, with low carbon renewal ($5.3 million) and accessibility ($4.2 million) costing the most, with project grant funding at $3.9 million. Only five per cent of the building is considered accessible right now, said Jury, with the accessibility project opening it up to 90 per cent.
“That project will be going on regardless,” he said about the failure of one of the streams of grant funding for the Civic project. “(B)ut we are always looking for opportunities to find other sources of funding.”
The Nelson Theatre Society also has a grant-funded project to extend the one-screen theatre to three screens.
The much talked about move of the downtown transit exchange will be starting, said Jury, with some detailed design work for that to be revealed soon. The exchange has a budget of $2.4 million with $1.9 million coming from project grant funding and BC Transit.
“I think it will really create a new hub for the downtown, and bring people to a central location there,” Jury said, adding that the city will be able to share more details and designs as that unfolded.
For the pilot project involving the FoodCycler — an in-house composter — phase one costs are $1.1 million, with a project grant funding total of $682,720. The 2023 budget includes $1.4 million with phase two contingent on results of the pilot program.
“The program will begin shortly with people in Fairview and the people on the early adopters list, pilot program,” said Jury. “And then we will kind of regroup, analyze the results and make some decisions on what phase two of this program will look like.”
Cottonwood Park is at the tail end of the project to work on parking area to create better flow and keep dust down in the area, said Jury, with the remaining budget for the year at $632,202, with total grant funding at $569,152.
The “Welcome to Nelson” sign is another capital project that should be done this year, Jury pointed out, with the total budget of $309,554 completely grant funded. Fabrication of the signs begins now and should end in June, shortly after that they will be installed. One coming from Ymir will be in a different location, the other two will be in the same spots.
The Active Transport Route will see another layer added to it with Fairview sidewalk improvements ($286,324) and bike parking ($77,000) with a total grant funding of $254,327.
The annual paving program will see around $1 million put into paving the city’s streets and replacing sidewalks, funded from the Capital Works reserve, which receives funding from street parking meters.
For Water capital projects the $6-million project to bring Selous and Anderson water into the Mountain Station reservoir is now into phase four. The plan is to also create some treated water storage in Nelson, said Jury.
“Having a treated water storage is really essential to having a ready source of water,” he said.
On wastewater side, the City has just completed its wastewater master plan, with capital projects slated to look at the liquid waste management plan ($165,000), rolling it out in 2023, installing new lift stations ($200,000), entering phase three of the Anderson Creek pump station ($200,000), phase four of the treated water reservoir ($1.4 million) and the beginning the Five-Mile pipeline replacement ($150,000).
