MORRISBURG – A sewage pumping station for the future Dutch Meadows subdivision will be tendered after South Dundas was able to trim $350,000 off its proposed cost.
Council held a special meeting Monday morning where Josh Eamon with EVB Engineering went over the changes to the specifications.
They include making a backup generator and a part on the plant called a flow metering chamber optional on the bid, which municipal staff say they can do without for now. Also gone from the plans is a building around the pumping station and in it’s place is an open-design rain shelter.
Coun. Archie Mellan and Mayor Steven Byvelds agreed that a generator is needed in the future but it could wait for now.
Also included as a provisional item is installing a sewer line under County Road 2 west of Merkley Street to service the subdivision, which the municipality previously budgeted $350,000 in August 2018.
Earlier this month, a frustrated council tasked Eamon with trimming the scope and the cost after a more detailed estimate for the new sewage station came in at $1.43 million dollars. The original Class D estimate was $823,939 and more detailed estimates are generally supposed to be plus or minus 20 per cent of a Class D estimate, meaning at the high end the project should have come in under $1 million.
EVB blames the wild price increase on “unprecedented inflation since 2018” in the construction industry due to “what contractors are calling a ‘price correction’ in the industry.”
The pumping station will be tendered with a ceiling of $1.1 million.
The 177 home development was first proposed by Iroquois-based Swank Construction in September 2016 for 54 acres of land, west of Steward Drive in Morrisburg.
Mayor Byvelds says he spoke with Swank Construction, who would like to see the plant running by September or October.
The mayor says the first cost estimate was a shock but felt this was the best plan going forward.
“We all dream for the future and try to make it as large as possible and I think that’s the right way of looking at life. However, in this circumstance, it’s beyond what South Dundas and the Dutch Meadows development can afford,” Byvelds said.
Facing an already “larger” sewage connection fee to cover the cost of the station, the mayor says he’s had “preliminary discussions” with the Swanks about “stepping up” the connection fee even more in the future based on the actual final cost because, as it stands now, “the math doesn’t work anymore.”
The mayor complemented the EVB and municipal staff for coming up with a “palatable” solution.
“It’s something that we have committed to, it’s something we want to see done in partnership with the Swanks and the work has started already and I think it’s starting to generate some excitement in South Dundas that a major housing development is occurring here in the village of Morrisburg,” Byvelds concluded.