A housing project for health care workers on Salt Spring is moving forward, and organizers hope to harmonize part of their work with expected summertime construction planned for the island’s busiest road.
The Capital Regional District (CRD) board approved a bylaw to expand the Ganges Sewer District to include the parcel at 101 Bittancourt Rd., the former Seabreeze Inne property fronting Fulford-Ganges Road, purchased by the Lady Minto Hospital Foundation (LMHF) and slated for conversion into 17 units to house hospital staff.
LMHF board vice-chair Julian Clark told the Ganges Sewer Commission back in June that the facility would also welcome “health care workers generally on the island,” and that the sewer connection was a critical step toward providing adequate septage not only for those planned units but also for any future development that might be contemplated on the two-acre lot.
But timing becomes more complicated after the CRD’s approval Wednesday, July 10, as the clock begins ticking on a hopeful coordination with the multi-million-dollar Fulford-Ganges Road improvement work planned by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI), much of which will occur directly in front of the Bittancourt property.
That roadwork envisions resurfacing and widening of 1.6 kilometres of the two-lane rural road, highlighted by drainage improvements and the construction of paved shoulders for pedestrians and cyclists — a 1.2-metre-wide shoulder heading north (or downhill into Ganges) and 1.8 metres in the southbound direction, according to MoTI tender documents.
With the potential of snarling Salt Spring traffic not once but twice for major road works on the island’s highest-traffic thoroughfare, organizers approached MoTI with the idea of an elegant partnership: an effort that could coordinate laying some 300 metres of new sewer line at the same time MoTI’s contractors were moving past the Bittancourt property, Clark said, “so that the road is only ripped up once.”
Clark told the commission the ministry had been “very accommodating” and suggested that once a successful bidder had been selected, the foundation’s planning team would be introduced to the contractors. The potential savings for the foundation, according to Clark, would be about $250,000.
Public records at press time indicate there have been three bids for the Fulford-Ganges construction, ranging in costs from $17.2 million to $19.5 million; while the ministry has previously indicated they were hopeful work would begin before the end of July, a spokesperson for MoTI confirmed to the Driftwood this week only that the province is currently verifying tender bids, and “expects to provide an update in the coming weeks.”
On Thursday, July 11, CRD director Gary Holman reported at Salt Spring’s Local Trust Committee meeting his understanding was that a planned coordination between the foundation, ministry and eventual contractor would likely represent a delay in starting construction – although not long, he said, adding that he felt the Bittancourt project had sufficient support in the community to offset any inconvenience that delay might represent.
“If we have to delay the repaving for a couple of months in order to coordinate those projects, I think that’s a wait that would be acceptable to most,” said Holman.
He also said there would likely be Community Works Fund monies that could be used to cover some costs that come with expanding the sewer system, although according to the CRD board resolution, the LMHF have agreed to pay all costs associated with adding the property to the service area, including multiple capacity and permit fees alongside construction costs.
CRD staff have said the sewer system at Ganges has more than enough capacity to accept potential outflows from the Bittancourt property, as well as from any future connections along the line between it and the existing system boundaries.