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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010
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City hikes rates
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QUAYSIDE RESIDENTS BATTLE RAILWAYS OVER NOISE
Average increase to utilities will be about $70 per household BY THERESA MCMANUS REPORTER tmcmanus@royalcityrecord.com
The City of New Westminster’s utility rates will be increasing in 2011 costing the average single family home $70.61 more per year. Council has given approval in principle to the proposed rate increases for the electrical, water, sewer and solid waste utilities. Property owners are facing an 11 per cent increase to water, a 5.4 per cent increase to sewer and a 7.5 per cent increase to solid waste, with the average single family home seeing an increase of $70.61. Utility rates are adjusted annually to pay for the operating costs of the utilities, the maintenance and replacement of utility infrastructure and equipment, and to ensure adequate reserve balances. A staff report notes that 11 per cent increases are proposed to water rates to fund the increased cost of bulk water purchases from the Greater Vancouver Water District and to address ongoing replacement of the city’s aging water system infrastructure. Water rates are expected to increase from nine to 10 per cent annually until 2015, a cost that’s driven by projected increases in purchasing water from the region and for meeting the capital replacement requirements. “We are only passing on what we absolutely have to from the GVRD,” said Coun. Bob Osterman. ◗Bills Page 8
Larry Wright/THE RECORD
Trains keep annoying: James Crosty (left) and Brian Allen of the Quayside community board continue their fight to have trains stop doing loud work at the rail yard during the night.
The little community that can ‘We are going through the minefield of legalese in order to get a solution,’ – James Crosty BY THERESA MCMANUS REPORTER tmcmanus@royalcityrecord.com
The Quayside Community Board is like the Little Engine that Could when it comes to railways noise. As a result of a complaint filed in 2008, the Canadian Transportation Agency assisted the Quayside Community Board in reaching a mediated settlement with rail companies
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operating in the rail yard adjacent to the Quayside neighbourhood. The intent of that settlement was to reduce, and ultimately eliminate the unreasonable noise and vibrations being generated by nighttime operations, for the benefit of the community. In April 2010, the Quayside Community Board filed a new noise and vibration complaint. It has requested that the Canadian Transportation Agency issue an operating guide for the rail companies that restricts operations in this rail yard to between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., as the railways were not following the mediated settlement. James Crosty, president of the Quayside
Community Board, said the residents’ association has had to contend with “overpowering legalese” presented by the railways. “We are going through the minefield of legalese in order to get a solution to the problem,” Crosty said. “We don’t care about process, we just care about results. The lawyers are fighting the process.” Brian Allen, chair of the Quayside Community Board’s rail noise committee, said the Quayside Community Board filed a new complaint as a result of the railways’ refusal to meet the terms of the previously ◗Trains Page 4
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