The Upper Thames River Conservation Authority is finally getting a much-needed new administrative building — but contentiously, it’s on the backs of municipalities.
Ian Wilcox, general manager of the UTRCA, attended St. Marys town council’s regular meeting last week (along with George Marr, chair of the UTRCA’s building committee) to discuss the new building, and importantly, the levy which all municipalities in the UTRCA must contribute to.
While the UTRCA has not gone to tender yet for the new facility, Wilcox told council that $12 million is an “upset limit” for the project.
“Ideally, we’d like to return money” to municipalities, Wilcox said of the cost of the building.
The reason why the UTRCA has given a ballpark figure of the building’s cost is due to the city of London, which is contributing almost $8 million. The municipality wanted to include this year’s portion — over $6.6 million — in its 2010 budget process.
The total levy has been divided over two years, however, Wilcox says that each municipality can determine how they want to ultimately pay their portion. St. Marys’ portion amounts to $199,638, $31,170 of which was included in last year’s budget.
Since the UTRCA approved the project at its recent annual board meeting, municipalities must pay the levy. However, there are two outstanding appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board related to the project from London and Thames Centre.
Wilcox says he expects London to resolve its appeal of the project with the Ontario Municipal Board once its 2010 municipal budget is approved.
As for Thames Centre’s appeal, after mediation last summer, Wilcox said at council that “we’re unclear of what their intent is,” and are waiting to hear from the municipality on its next steps.
Wilcox later told the Journal Argus that the UTRCA won’t go to tender until April or May, and are “hoping (the appeals) is resolved.”
St. Marys voiced its misgivings of the project via its board of directors representative Tony Jackson, who was the sole board member to vote against the project in a recorded vote, and was in attendance at council.
At the council meeting, however, Coun. Marg Luna still questioned the $12 million price tag. “I don’t doubt there is a need...(but) in St. Marys we were accused of building a Taj Mahal with a $3 million building,” she said, referring to the town’s construction of the municipal operations centre in 2006.   
Wilcox explained that this figure including components such as planning, landscaping and permits, as well as forecasting for the building’s future use. The current building houses 80 employees; Wilcox says the the new building will be able to house 115 staff members.
“The need for the building is not new — we ran out of space 18 years ago,” explained Wilcox, adding that a building committee has been working on a plan for four years.
Wilcox also addressed why the UTRCA is remaining at the Fanshawe Park site, instead of looking at some of the now-vacant schools (such as Plover Mills) or renting office space elsewhere.
Buildings at Fanshawe Park benefit from free electricity thanks to a hydroelectric generator at the site.
“We will save more than $2 million over the life of the building,” says Wilcox of keeping the building at the same location — information which council had not received before.
Also, in response to a question from Coun. Bill Osborne, between one third and one half of the current building will be incorporated into the new facility, and staff won’t have to relocate during the construction — something that would otherwise be a “huge expense for a year,” Wilcox said.
Using a portion of the existing building will help the UTRCA obtain a platinum LEED environmental certification — the highest degree possible.
Coun. Bruce Symons wondered if the UTRCA could just utilize the LEED plans, but not go for the certification, which would be an additional cost (this is the route the town took when building the Pyramid Recreation Centre).
George Marr, chair of the UTRCA’s building committee, explained that it will take eight years to recoup the certification costs, and after that, the UTRCA would save money for the rest of the building’s expected 40-year life span.
Plus, obtaining the certification would be a good fit with the UTRCA’s mandate. “We’re a conservation authority — if we’re going to try to talk the talk, we should walk the walk,” George Marr, chair of the building committee, explained at the council meeting.
The UTRCA did look for alternate funding sources, says Wilcox, and applied for the non-profit portion of the provincial-federal infrastructure grants available last year. “When it comes to non-profit funding, there just wasn’t enough to go around,” Wilcox told council, noting that there was $300 million allocated for what amounted to $4 billion worth of applications submitted.