Bad luck

It reads like a cry for help. It may look like a proposal to rebuild waterworks infrastructure in the Wellington/Bloomfield/Picton corridor, but it comes across more as the rantings of a struggling friend with a gambling addiction— desperate to change their luck. “Please, please lend me $300 million, just this one last time. I promise I’m gonna get clean. And I’ll pay you back.”

It is both pathetic and obviously deluded. Worse, it’s your home that is now at risk.

Let’s start with the top line—the latest estimate to rebuild all this infrastructure is no longer $100 million. It is not $200 million. As of this week, Shire Hall’s best guess at the cost of waterworks upgrades from Wellington, Bloomfield and Picton has risen to $300 million. (See story Page 3). The estimates are still mostly just scratching on paper, which means the eventual cost of this plan will certainly be much higher than the current guess.

But let us imagine, for discussion purposes, the costs don’t rise beyond the $300 million range. The ask on the table remains the ravings of a wild-eyed gambler desperate to end their losing streak.

We simply don’t have this kind of money. Only 6,000 waterworks customers are on the Prince Edward County waterworks utility (77 per cent are residential customers). If this plan were approved, each one of these customers would be on the hook to fund $50,000 of this ambition. Each. That’s a big ask.

To be crystal clear on this point, only existing waterworks customers are responsible for this debt. Not developers. Not general property taxpayers. Not other levels of government. Only existing waterworks customers. Residents living in Picton, Rossmore, Ameliasburgh, Consecon, Carrying Place and Wellington are entirely on the hook to pay this $300 million back.

Interest costs alone will add $416 dollars to your bi-monthly bill, about $2,500 to your annual water costs. That’s if things work out really well for Shire Hall. If their luck turns and a few morsels of development charges are thrown Shire Hall’s way upfront, maybe, just maybe, they can avoid paying the principal on this debt for a decade or so.

But if development doesn’t happen at the scale and pace anticipated, existing customers will pay back this debt. That means about $6,500 more for the average annual water bill (interest plus principal) in Prince Edward County. Does that work for you?

Is that manageable? Will you be able to continue to live here when your water bills are $9,000 (debt repayment plus your current water bill) per year?

Here is where it gets truly sad. And dangerous.

Shire Hall’s plan rests entirely on one or more of 21 lottery tickets paying off. It is betting everything you have on the prospect that developers will soon produce thousands of new homes in Picton and Wellington. And will do so for decades. Until the population doubles. This is what it means when Shire Hall talks about growth paying for growth: new homes producing development charges to pay back existing waterworks customers for the infrastructure they fronted. It’s a big gamble. Getting bigger with every estimate.

But increasingly, Shire Hall speaks about tracts of new homes rising out of the fields around Picton and Wellington the way a compulsive punter assures you their luck is about to turn. Experience and their own eyes should tell them otherwise.

But bad luck. So much bad luck that good luck must be right around the corner, right? Baby needs a new pair of shoes. Perhaps they even believe it. But it doesn’t make it sensible. Or rational. Nor should it be enabled. Shire Hall is rolling dice with your home.

For Shire Hall, it’s their only play. They’re out of options. So they double down. And double down again. Until desperation makes the numbers meaningless. The hole gets deeper until the bottom is no longer visible.

But somewhere along the way, the game changes. With each big bet chasing an elusive jackpot, the game turns in favour of developers.

For the moment, Shire Hall retains the levers to control and manage development—where it goes, what it looks like, density and other mundane items such as development charges and when they get paid. But when Shire Hall owes $300 million, power shifts inexorably, utterly, overwhelmingly toward the developer. Neither Shire Hall nor Council will be able to say no. Or too much. Or too fast. Too ugly. Too dense. Not dense enough.

Developers will dictate when, where and how much. Because the weight of our debt will give them this power. Developers will set the terms. They will hold all the levers to shape our community. Neither Shire Hall nor Council will be able to turn down any development proposal, no matter how ludicrous or damaging to the environment or community, because they need the money—or the whisper of money. “Is your subdivision on protected land? Sure, go right ahead. Forty-storey tower? Please and thank you. You don’t have the cash to pay your DCs today? We can talk about that, too.”

Shire Hall is in crisis.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca