Some Transcona homeowners are speaking out about a new sewer line in their neighbourhood.
About 20 homeowners living on Ravelston Avenue West whose homes still use septic tanks are being forced to hook up to a new sewer line and pay a share of the cost of installing it.
Homeowner Kimberley Halischuk said she received notice from the city in September homeowners will be responsible for paying thousands of dollars each for the new line.
There is a provincial requirement that homeowners hook up to municipal sewer within five years if it becomes available in areas where it was not previously available.
“The private connection is our responsibility as per provincial law,” said Halischuk. “We are all understanding and we all are amenable to that, however, our opposition is with the actual sewer itself which is located on city property and is city owned.”
The connection charge for the sewer main will cost homeowners $122 per frontage foot.
For Halischuk’s 100 foot frontage that means a bill of around $12,000 plus additional fees for the private connection.
“I mean it’s financially crushing,” she said.
City officials said while provincial rules require homeowners to hook up, a city by-law determines they pay a share for the new sewer main.
“The connection fee that is charged under the sewer by-law is a fee that’s collected by the city and remitted to the installer of the sewer main,” said Moria Geer, the city’s director of waste and wastewater. “Because that new property benefits from the infrastructure that had been installed and paid by another party.”
“The private homeowner would be responsible for the private infrastructure they would have to install to connect their home to the sewer main.”
Eighty-four per cent of residents opposed a local improvement plan for water and sewer in a vote in 2015 but the sewer project was initiated because of a 2013 council-approved agreement for a new residential development on the street.
