Sturgeon Valley residents want to see improvements to local fire services, but they are not warm to the notion of paying extra.
Sturgeon County councillors asked administration to look at new ways to fund the $10-million cost to upgrade fire service in the Sturgeon Valley after a survey revealed few residents are interested in paying local improvement taxes for the upgrades.
The online survey was conducted over the summer and drew 172 respondents from the area. The numbers suggest that while 71 per cent of residents want better fire protection only 50 per cent would be willing to pay for it.
While many subdivisions in the valley have hydrants, the pipes running to them don’t supply enough water. The proposed upgrades would add hydrants and improve water pipes and reservoir capacity.
In the event of a house fire, crews currently uses water trucks and shuttle back and forth to filling stations.
At open houses in the spring, county administration proposed a plan that would fund the $10-million cost with $2 million in borrowing and $8 million in revenues from a local improvement levy.
That would work out to a $603 annual levy on each home in the valley for the next 15 years.
In the online survey, 73 per cent of those polled said they would be willing to pay between $0 and $300 per year and only 14 per cent were willing to spend more than $500.
The final question in the survey was more general, asking residents if they were in favour of the project as proposed, to which 60 per cent of residents said no.
Div. 2 Coun. Tom Flynn, who represents the area, said county administration needs to take a second look at the proposal and come up with something residents can tolerate.
“It has to be at a level that is acceptable to all of the residents or the majority of them to be sure.”
The problems with fire services in the area has resulted in most residents paying higher home insurance premiums because of the increased risk to their homes.
Sturgeon County fire Chief Bart Clark said there are a lot of variables in insurance costs, but he believes residents would see a huge drop in their insurance if the upgrades were completed.
“They would probably get their money back and then some.”
Clark said to get full credit from their insurance, homeowners would need the proposed upgrades as well as a full-time fire hall in Sturgeon Valley.
The $10-million cost does not include the new hall and it is not clear how that would be funded or where it would be built.
If Sturgeon was to go ahead with the plan, it would bring a service to the area that is not available elsewhere in the county, something Flynn said council would have to keep in mind.
“We have to make it fair to the people in the valley, and anything that we do has to be fair to people in the rest of Sturgeon County.”
Clark said valley residents should contact their home insurance agents and ask them about what their rate would be with improved fire hydrant capacity and a full-time fire department nearby.
“Then they would know for sure what kind of discount they would be getting and then they could make an informed decision.”
Administration is set to return to council with alternate funding proposals early next year.
