A petition process will be opened to allow Shadow Mountian residents to determine if they want to be connected to Cranbrook’s sanitary sewer system.
City officials said the Shadow Mountain area is currently using a temporary on-site sewer holding tank that must be stored and transported out using trucks.
On Tuesday night’s council meeting, a petition process was approved to determine in the area should be connected via sewer main, using a Local Area Service (LAS) bylaw.
City officials note that the cost of the infrastructure addition will not be borne by general taxpayers.
“An LAS may be initiated either by owners of property in the proposed local area or by the municipal Council. In this instance, the City is looking to establish a local area service to provide sewer service to only a segment of the municipality (Shadow Mountain), with all costs of the service paid for by the property owners within that area through a parcel tax,” said city officials.
Those against the infrastructure addition must vote to keep it from moving forward. An insufficient number of votes will mean the area gets the sewage connection.
“The City is attempting to develop this project on behalf of the various landowners and strata properties at Shadow Mountain,” said Curtis Penson, Manager of Engineering for the City of Cranbrook. “If the LAS petition is not successful to fund the proposed sewer system project proposed by the City this will no longer be a City lead project, the onsite sewer system permits will need to be renewed between Shadow Mountain and Interior Health and the Ministry of Environment.”
Only Shadow Mountain residents will be able to vote on the petition, with information packages being sent out to eligible property owners.
Those wanting to vote against the proposal must do so by 4 p.m. on Oct 31st.