Responding

Shire Hall open to alternate solutions

What to do in Wellington? There is capacity for just five new homes in the village. The wastewater treatment plant capacity is nearly as much as it takes in. When the utility deducts the plant capacity committed to Kaitlin (483 homes) and Niles Street—the former Dukedome (40 units)—it leaves room for a handful of new homes.

It may be good news for Jordan Yarrow. He recently severed a lot on Belleville Street, hoping to build a new home. He was told it could be decades before he could build. Maybe not.

The news of a few morsels of capacity sitting on the floor, however, may trigger a run on the plants—as folks scramble to scoop up the remaining crumbs.

Wellington councillor Corey Engelsdorfer asked about the potential of freeing up 40 units set aside for the Niles Street project. The County’s affordable housing project has been mostly dormant since the former rink was demolished. The province declined to participate in funding the municipality’s plans, and Shire Hall doesn’t have the resources to develop it on its own.

CAO Goheen reported that a cumbersome environmental process was near an end. It won’t fix Shire Hall’s money or resources gap. But it enables municipal staff to pursue the remaining threads of interest in the project. If such efforts fail to bear fruit, the CAO will bring the capacity allocated back to the council table. Only Council has the authority to move the capacity allocated to this project.

MODULAR SOLUTIONS
Earlier this summer, the Wellington councillor, along with several of the County’s waterworks and engineering officials, toured Quinte West’s Stonecrest Estates Wastewater treatment plant. It is a modular, or package, plant. It was built by a developer and is now operated by the municipality.

The facility was proposed as an economical and flexible method of accommodating uncertain and peripheral demand for new homes in Bayside. Quinte West required a method for scaling capacity to accommodate a few dozen to several hundred homes—10 kilometres from the sewage treatment plant. A modular treatment facility fit the bill. And it’s working well.

A developer in Wellington is proposing a similar solution. Sterling Homes has plans for about 200 homes north of the Legion on two sides of Cleminson Street. It is blocked by the fact that another developer, Kaitlin, has tied up the remaining capacity in the wastewater plant. Sterling’s Paul Mondell says if his project were given the green light today, Sterling would be in the ground in a year, with new homes ready to move in a year later. The developer plans to build mostly townhomes—a more affordable, and much-needed, housing format for the village.

Sterling says a modular wastewater treatment plant—either on the municipality’s property or the developer’s— would break the logjam in Wellington.

CAO Adam Goheen told a committee of council that he has experience with package (modular) plants and that they represent a viable option—potentially as an interim solution. He said that if proposed modular wastewater systems were being put on the table for consideration by the Water and Wastewater Rates Committee, that they would review and make a recommendation to council.

“I feel we should be looking at that,” said CAO Goheen. “To get those units built.”