Ritchot budgets for $7 million dike

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/04/2014 (3662 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The $7 million St Adolphe dike expansion is going to happen insists Dawson Trail MLA Ron Lemieux, and is included in Ritchot’s $3.3 million budget.

“The landowners are entering into a legal agreement on selling their land to a developer in Winnipeg,” Lemieux said. “That’s a real positive; so the land won’t have to be expropriated by the municipality… That just puts everything right back on track.”

The federal dollars promised under the last Building Canada fund is still on the table according to Lemieux. The program stipulates that the money must be spent by Sept. 30 of next year. That is why the holdout from the handful of landowners needed to end soon, with expropriation being a process that would have added more time to the plans to double the size of the community.

The cost of the dike is split three ways between the levels of government. Ritchot is borrowing $2.5 million for the project. The federal and provincial governments are chipping in a total of $4.62 million. Lemieux said he hopes to see work started this summer to finish by next fall.

The biggest is still pending approval for cost sharing with the other levels of government and would be paid for by a new local improvement levy. The East Ritchot Drainage Improvement Project would cost $1.346 million if approved. The next highest price tag is $351,000 for a new fire department pumper truck in St Adolphe. Another $50,000 is dedicated to draw up a plan for a new fire hall in Ste Agathe.

 

For more on Ritchot’s spending spree to meet demands from and encourage more growth read today’s paper.