Thomas Brook property owners are still on the line to pay an additional fee for sewer hookup.
Property owners discovered the fee following a letter from the director of Development Services on Nov. 29, 2017 advising them of a $6,655 fee per house to connect to the sanitary sewer. They were not advised of the fee prior to this due to a clerical error.
Two letters written by residents were brought forward at a regular City Council meeting on Jan. 9.
One letter, signed by nine households, asked the city to exempt them from the fee.
“We do not feel that these sewer connection fees are appropriate or applicable in our situation, and we are asking that you would reconsider allocating these additional fees to us,” it says.
Thomas Brook residents are on the hook already annually to pay for the sewer installation. The $6,655 fee per home is on top of that, to connect to the sanitary sewer.
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City of Revelstoke CAO Allan Chabot said that the cost is required by the sanitary sewer bylaw for any property going from septic to the city’s sanitary sewer.
He called the administrative error “really unfortunate.”
“Even on a monthly basis, it’s still a large sum of money for homeowners who already are saddled with increased cost due to the cost of capital infrastructure and coming into the city,” he said.
“I know in my personal budget, if I was handed a $6,700 bill over and aove what I had to pay per year, it would really affect me from a financial perspective,” said Councillor Gary Sulz.
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Councillor Scott Duke formally apologized to the residents.
“This was a mistake. It was a clerical mistake. It was a mistake made by our staff. It was a mistake made by our organization and I would like to formally apologize to the residents,” he said.
City Council voted to give the residents until Dec. 31, 2019 to pay the charge without penalty.
Mayor Mark McKee and Councillor Connie Brothers were absent from the meeting.
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