The enormous $4-billion cost to complete Metro Vancouver’s North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant will be shared by every household in the regional district.
The bill for the project has ballooned to nearly eight times its initial cost of $500 million.
At a Metro Vancouver board meeting Friday, members debated different scenarios for about an hour and 40 minutes.
The board went in circles at times, running through more than half a dozen different plans, and couldn’t agree on various motions.
Finally, after a board vote, the plan going ahead will see every household in Vancouver paying $150 over a 15-year period to complete the project.
Richmond households will be on the hook for $80 a household over 15 years and the Fraser Valley region will be paying $90 over 15 years.
The biggest payments will be for North Shore households, which will have to pay $590 over a 30-year period.
“The North Shore is now having to pick up this extra additional cost because a project has gone significantly sideways … broken,” Lisa Muri, a North Vancouver District councillor, said during the meeting.
“That is not equity. That is not fair to any of us.”
The board has been trying to come up with a fair way to divide up the remaining costs of this project among taxpayers.
North Shore municipal leaders are not pleased with the task at hand, with at least one councillor calling for an independent audit.
Metro Vancouver staff will now be looking at how to allocate this into the budget when it is brought in the fall for approval.
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