County of Barrhead residents will have to pay more to access certain services after councillors unanimously approved a recommendation from administration to update its schedule of fees.
Also at their Jan. 2 meeting, councillors instructed administration to conduct a review of its land acquisition rates and bring it forward to council at a future date.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun noted she decided to bring an updated fee schedule after receiving a recommendation from the municipal committee and agricultural services board.
The increases include the processing of tax certificates from $20 to $25 and photocopying services will be $0.15 and $0.30 for black and white and colour respectively. Rental of the county’s RoCon Gopher machine daily rate increases to $30 from $20 per day, plus the cost of chemicals.
“We also added a new section on FOIPP [Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy] and that is just to align ourselves with the recommendation from the [province’s] privacy commissioner’s office,” she said.
The initial fee for a non-continuing information request is $25 while the initial fee for a continuing request is $50. The provincial government sets these fees.
The municipal committee also recommended increasing the supper allowance for councillors and members at large serving on boards such as the Agriculture Services Board from $25 to $30.
Coun. Walter Preugschas asked what the reasoning was behind the county’s fee schedule for the acquisition of land for road right-of-ways and borrow pits, which are set at $2,000 and $1,000 per acre respectively. A borrow pit, also known as a sand box, is an area where material (usually soil, gravel or sand) has been dug for use at another location.
“Is that a realistic amount?” he asked.
Oyarzun said they are comparable to what other counties in the area are charging and that they work with the county’s assessor to determine what the market rate is.
Preugschas disagreed that the rate was set at current market value, saying depending on the area, land values are upwards of $5,000 an acre.
“It depends on what it is for,” Oyarzun responded. “It is for a road right-of-way and not a parcel of land.”
Reeve Doug Drozd noted the land acquisition rates were recently adjusted in 2013 for right-of-ways and 2016 for borrow pits.
Preugschas then asked administration if the county has had any issues acquiring land it needed for any of its projects, using these rates.
“There is only one that I’m aware of where we have some challenges, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with the dollars, but the principal of the project more than anything,” Oyarzun said.
Coun. Dennis Nanninga said he agreed with Preugschas in that in many cases, borrow pits and right-of-way land acquisition rates were below the market value.
“It seems to me it would make more sense to have it tied into assessed value rather than having a blanket rate,” he said.
Coun. Darrell Troock argued that the rates shouldn’t be tied to market value of the property.
“It is for public use and it has to be standard and a budget item. Every time you adjust it, it is precedent setting. So, if we are held hostage because of land values, then there goes our construction,” he said. “Plus, if you are going to upgrade my road, that is a benefit to me as a resident and I shouldn’t be fighting so much on land value.”
Nanninga said on the flip side, a project could be stalled because the county isn’t offering market value and that value can change depending where the land is.
“But if you are getting market value, at least we and everyone else concerned has the argument that at least you are being paid what you should be paid,” he said. “However, if you aren’t paying up to that, it is much harder to convince a person that they should sell their land for a project.”
Nanninga said while he understood the argument, paying market value, could potentially impact a project’s viability, using the example of Township Road 604.
“We boosted our rates for that project because we couldn’t get the land and if we use the rate of $2,000 an acre that we are now at for the 12 miles because we did the road on both sides that would have increased the project by a over $1 million and that is just to buy the land,” he said, adding even rates are boosted to market value it still doesn’t guarantee the county will be able to buy the land.
