Infrastructure front and centre at Belleville city council

A new report on Belleville’s downtown construction was a focal point at Belleville’s council meeting on Monday. Photo by Emilie Quesnel, QNet News

By Joseph Quigley

BELLEVILLE – City councillors contested the future of the downtown revitalization, part of the Build Belleville program, at Monday night’s council meeting.

A new report from city staff offered suggestions on the revitalization. The first phase of the project, which involves construction from Station Street to Pinnacle Street and Victoria Avenue, has pushed the entire project $10 million over budget. Originally, all three stages of the downtown construction were supposed to cost a total of $21 million.

The report offers suggestions on how that money could be made up. It notes that five other projects under the Build Belleville program have been built under budget, which could free up money. It also suggests that new grants from the provincial and federal governments could be allocated to the downtown.

An excerpt from the report on the future of the downtown revitalization. The excerpt outlines recommendations on how additional funding for the project could be found. Photo courtesy City of Belleville

But several councillors took issue with these suggestions.

Coun. Mitch Panciuk said that using money from other projects would be the wrong way to solve the issue.

“When we do capital projects and we are under budget, my view is that allows you to do additional projects,” said Panciuk. “I don’t believe it is good management or leadership from city council to say that if we were under budget on a project we can now afford to force projects that we are over budget on. We shouldn’t be over budget on projects. I’m very concerned about the fact that we are not making any effort to stay within the $21 million and I think we should be doing that.”

Rod Bovay, the city’s director of engineering and development services, said that it could be difficult to keep the other stages of downtown construction within the original budget.

“Certainly, we can look at options that are available in terms of cutting back the work,” said Bovay. “Given that a lot of work is underground, it’d be tough to find the savings to get it done that way. Until we get out to tender with Phase 2 (of downtown construction), you’re not going to know where you’re at with a slightly different approach.”

Coun. Paul Carr said that he takes issue with reallocating the debt involved in the project. The city paid for many of the Build Belleville projects by going further into debt. Carr said that transferring debt that was used to fund other Build Belleville projects, which since come in under budget, to the downtown is a bad idea.

“Build Belleville projects are all individual projects and that’s how I view them. To sit there and suggest that you have debt capacity because that’s what we’ve agreed to – I would be cautious to go down that road,” said Carr. “If we’re going to realize savings then that means we’re not going to be burdening the taxpayer with more debt on a long term.”

Coun. Mike Graham noted that receiving new funding from the federal government was not a guarantee.

“The one (suggestion) I am a little wary of (is) ‘taking advantage of new infrastructure funding opportunities by the provincial and federal government.’ That’s something the prime minister (Justin Trudeau) promised during election time. I wouldn’t bet too much on that until I see a cheque,” said Graham.

The vote passed by council was only to receive the report.

During its recent meetings on the 2016 capital budget, council approved putting work on the next stage of downtown construction out to tender. A decision on the next part of the construction will come once that process is completed.