The city will continue to contribute around $2.3 million annually in order to fund the Maley Drive extension project.
Council voted in favour of the financial plan that was presented on May 10 to continue their contributions up to a total of $26.7 million which will fund one third of the $80.1 million project.
The city has been contributing $2.28 million into the Roads Capital Budget and the account balance is currently in excess of $15 million, leaving a required funding of $11.7 million which will be paid off over the next five years.
Council agreed to award AECOM Canada Ltd. contract administration. Phase one of the project will get underway when the city issues their first tender in the middle of this month. The first step in actual construction is the majority of the Notre Dame interchange and the realignment of Notre Dame Avenue.
Phase one is broken down into four construction segments with Notre Dame as the first, followed by the connection from Lasalle Boulevard across Notre Dame to Barrydowne Road. Third will be the rehabilitation of the existing Maley Drive, and fourth will be tree clearing.
The first four construction contracts are expected to be completed in 2019.
In addition, within the existing water/wastewater capital budget there is a project to replace the water main along Maley Drive from Junction Creek to National Street for a distance of approximately 700 m. This work is proposed to be completed this year.
Ward 11 coun. Lynne Reynolds raised questions about what the property costs would be to the city for the project, outside of the costs of the actual road itself.
“Is there any kind of estimate on property costs and is there any kind of idea of what we have to purchase for phase one?” said Reynolds, directing her question at the city's director of roads and transportation services, David Shelsted.
“The property costs for this will be less than $240,000 we believe,” said Shelsted. “We're happy to announce that Vale has kindly donated their portion of these lands to the city at zero cost. There's one private land owner that we're negotiating with at a cost of around $80,000 but with that land donation that's about the number we're at.”
Ward 6 coun. René Lapierre had questions about the order in which the contracts will be carried out and how that decision was made.
“How come we're starting at the other end when the current Maley Drive is in such rough shape?” said Lapierre. “Why couldn't we rebuild that one first so that we'd have a good road to drive on and then continue from there?”
Shelsted explained that one of the set scopes within the city's funding agreement was to ensure a connection between Lasalle, Notre Dame, and Barrydowne.
“It's our goal to tender those two contracts and actually see the contract pricing, get some reassurances of costs and then we can look at what we can do with existing Maley Drive,” said Shelsted.
“There are some options of how to rehabilitate that roadway and then we can look at costs of the project and manage the budget that way.”
The majority of council was on board with the financial plan as laid out by Shelsted, with the lone vote in opposition coming from ward 2 coun. Michael Vagnini who expressed concern with unforeseen costs.
“I understand that water and sewer is not going to be going all along Maley Drive but there is some water and sewer costs that have come up that weren't included in the initial budget,” said Vagnini.
There is currently an existing water main along Maley Drive that has been taken offline, but according to Shelsted, money had already been set aside in the water/wastewater budget a few years ago to replace the existing water main.