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(Nicole Reis/meadowlakeNOW Staff)
Green Space

Council looks at options for green space near new long-term care facility

Jan 17, 2020 | 1:43 PM

Meadow Lake City Council are grappling with how to deal with use of a vacant parcel of land near the site of the planned long-term care facility set to break ground later this year.

A spokesperson at city hall said the vacant site belonged to a former Esso gas station which stopped operating sometime in the mid 1980s.

City Manager Diana Burton told meadowlakeNOW, councillors are considering using the site as green space abutting the facility.

“The expectation is that there will be contamination from old an gas station, so basically you can’t do anything with the site, unless that gets remediated,” Burton said. ”Without remediating, we could turn it into green space because we won’t have to dig down into soil and the environmental contamination wouldn’t be disrupted.”

Burton went on to say if soil is disrupted, municipalities are faced with a challenge: when companies hold onto properties, cities can’t force companies to remediate disrupted land.

Ministry regulations

In an email to meadowlakeNOW, the Ministry of Environment stated those who are responsible for contamination are required to notify the ministry of any spill of hazardous substance or dangerous goods. It also requires the same notification if contamination of soil or water samples are discovered on the property.

The email stated the ministry will determine if there is a risk to the public or environment in the discovery of contamination.

“Other than mandatory notification to the ministry for discharges and discoveries, the processes of the Saskatchewan Environmental Code are voluntary. This means that once the contamination is reported to the ministry, the responsible party can assess and address the impacts in whatever manner or timeline they choose, as long as there is no immediate risk to occupants of the site, off-site landowners, the public and/or the environment, and the actions are completed in accordance with the requirements of the Code,” the email said.

It added: “If the responsible party refuses to address any immediate risks, the ministry may direct them to complete an environmental site assessment, which triggers strict timelines for completing the assessment work and preparing and executing a corrective action plan. The ministry reserves the directed process for high-risk sites with non-compliant responsible parties.”

The ministry noted saskspills.ca as a reference point for reported spills though earliest sets of data begin from 1998.

“[Remediation] is a very expensive process. Sometimes alternate uses are sought for those lands,” Burton said.

Burton said in return for city undertaking liability of contaminated land, councillors are considering purchasing the site, or having the land transferred over for green space use. Council also discussed the possibility of increasing the site’s municipal tax rate.

“Cities in Saskatchewan who operate under the Cities Act, not the Municipalities Act, we have the ability to create different classes of taxation. The Municipalities Act for towns and villages, from my understanding, is they have set tax classes and they can’t deviate from that, we can create different ones,” Burton said.

That means contaminated vacant land can be taxed at a higher rate as an incentive for the property owner to remediate or sell the land.

“That would be one mechanism we have. It is something that municipalities across Canada talk about at great length,” Burton said.

It is unknown what the current tax rate of the site is or if the site is in arrears with municipal taxes.

“What can also happen is if the property owner, for example, doesn’t want to remediate and doesn’t want to assume liability, they can just stop paying any taxes the city charges. The end result, if not paying taxes for a number of years, is that we take the property and we would end up owning it,” she said.

Burton added council is thinking of some green space for residents may be a way to see that land improved on and used even if it isn’t going to be remediated.

Changing tax rates to prompt a response

For some insight into the changing of tax rates, meadowlakeNOW reached out to Steve Brown, Financial Director with the City of North Battleford. He provided an informal update with the downtown revitalization project which began nearly three years ago. He mentioned the city has faced challenges from charging an increased municipal rate for vacant properties.

“It’s been a mixed bag of success. In some cases, some successes have happened but others have a tax bill just building up,” he said.

“If we have to go back and take the taxes and we can only sell the property for $5,000 and we have $280,000 in outstanding taxes, we have to write that off. To a degree, you may get the property back in play but you have to take a fairly substantial financial hit to get those properties back in,” Brown said.

He added a city takes a risk from increased taxes that never materialize from people abandoning their commercial properties.

Owner says no risk to the public

Jon Harding, a spokesperson with Imperial Oil confirmed ownership of the 1.67 acres of land and its use as an Esso Service Station until 1995.

“The facilities were dismantled and removed including the underground tanks after 1995,” he said.

“We monitor the environmental condition to ensure the environment is protected and based on the data we’ve collected over the years, to date,there’s no risk to the public health or safety or risk to the environment associated to past operations there,” he said.

Harding added the environmental condition reports of the site are confidential to Imperial Oil though the site is still monitored. He reiterated, based on what data has been collected so far there is no risk to the public.

“When we have a property like this, there are a number of factors that would influence our plans to sell. We would look at the community, and the environmental and technical considerations, market value, potential future uses, purchasers financial capacity and regulatory requirements. All of these things are considered when we’re deciding what to do with a property such as this,” he said.

“If the city was interested in approaching us and gathering information, we’d be willing to have a conversation,” he said.

Editor’s note: this story was amended from the original to include comment from Steve Brown with the City of North Battleford and Imperial Oil.

nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722

nicole.reis@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @nicolereis7722

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