Press pause

Shire Hall says it was a Council decision. Council approved the plan—and the spending—only Council can pause it. Or slow it down.

It should do so. Now.

Few council members, regrettably, have any stake in the County’s waterworks utility. Most are not customers, nor will they bear the consequences should the $100 million project to expand Wellington’s waterworks radically go wrong. Or sideways.

Shire Hall is betting big with other people’s money. And the bet is looking riskier by the day.

The last time Shire Hall adequately consulted with the residents of Wellington was in 2010 and 2011. Throughout several public meetings in the basement of CML Snider School, many dozens of folks were encouraged to share their sense of community. What did they value? What did they care most about? How did they want to see their village grow? What guardrails did they want to see erected to protect values such as heritage, affordability, walkability, Main Street core, and tree cover? From those facilitated sessions emerged Wellington’s Secondary Plan. The document, more or less, reflected the ideas and aspirations of the folks in that room. It was a good process.

Since then, Wellington has largely been shut out of the decision-making on the big matters facing this village. Big decisions have been made in the intervening years.

In 2013, a consultant predicted the village was set to see an explosion of new homebuilding, and Wellington would soon become the largest town in the County.

It would have been good to discuss this prospect with residents, no?

In 2020, the consultant’s estimate formed the basis for the Proposed Implementation Strategy. It was now official—Wellington’s population was expanding from 2,189 (1,970 permanent, 219 seasonal) to 8,600 people, and Shire Hall figured it had to build the waterworks capacity to serve the massing horde.

Another good moment for a talk was missed.

Yet the municipality pushed on. It hired an engineering consultant to tell them how to build a water system for 8,600 people. The consultant prescribed a new water tower, new pipes under the Millennium Trail and new water and wastewater plants. The cost: $100 million. (Oh, and perhaps the municipality might also want to consider drawing water from Wellington and distributing it to serve Picton, Rossmore and Consecon too. No cost estimate was provided.)

Then it hired the same consultant who had predicted Wellington’s ballooning population to figure out how to fund the massive new infrastructure— who would pay? The consultant determined that about half of $100 million would ultimately be recovered from new homes (development charges), while a third ($30 million) would come from development charges for nearly a million square feet of new commercial and non-residential development. (Consider the likelihood of that prospect for a moment.) The consultant figured about $18 million should be funded by existing customers.

Some important things to discuss, don’t you think? But it didn’t happen.

Then in 2021, Shire Hall devised a plan to get developers to prepay development charges to cover debt payments during the build-out. For this plan to work optimally, it relied upon four developers participating and creating internal competition to ensure they met the County’s timelines and requirements.

But two failed to participate. One of the two remaining developers acquired the other’s project. Suddenly there was just one. A single developer now controls all the available waterworks capacity in the village.

That control, however, lapsed in May. Nevertheless, there seems little indication the developer is building homes in Wellington in the foreseeable future. Nor is Shire Hall prepared, yet, to release the waterworks allocation to other builders. In any event, the County’s leverage has largely ebbed away.

Once again, we have arrived at an intersection at which it is appropriate to stop and have a conversation with this community. Not about engineering drawings of pipes and plants—but rather a serious conversation about values, about what we love about our village, how we can protect it and nurture smart growth. About the way forward. About new homes that serve every demographic. Homes for seniors graduating from rambling single-family homes to multi-residential or assisted living. Homes and apartments for young people and young families yearning to live in Wellington. And everyone in between.

Shire Hall has sunk about $30 million so far into this bet. It’s time to reevaluate.

For you are on the hook—waterworks customers are responsible for the money already spent on this project and the $50 million Shire Hall says it will spend on new plants. If hundreds and hundreds of new homes don’t soon materialize in Wellington, waterworks customers are on the hook for this debt until they do. If a million square feet of new commercial building (roughly equal to six Costco stores) don’t show up, waterworks customers are on the hook. If Wellington fails to become the largest town in the County—you are on the hook.

If you pay a water bill in Prince Edward County, you may want to talk with your council member.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca