Lantzville council put forward a set of preliminary motions to require that water connections on new homes come before council for approval.
The motions, put forward by Coun. Ian Savage and pending legal advice, passed in a 3-0 vote at a meeting May 14 and would affect both a district bylaw and policy to give council authority on determining if a water connection should be permitted on a new home.
"The point … is to give council the authority to decide Lantzville's future with water connections and we'll find out through a lawyer what the best way to go about that is," Savage said. "We're simply going back to giving council authority over allocating our limited water connections, and the allocation of water connections are supposed to be considered of a list of priorities, but since 2018 water connections have been on a first-come, first-serve basis and all of them have gone to new development."
Savage compared it to the district's former water connection policy, eliminated in 2018, which stated, "council may, at its discretion, allocate all or a portion of the 50 water connections to new development." Since then, requests have been considered by the director of public works and haven't come to the council table.
The motions were seconded by Coun. Joan Jones.
"I appreciate the situation we're in where we have very little in the way of connections and as elected officials we have to consider the needs of existing residents as well as those of development – that is our job," Jones said.
The discussion followed a report by Koers and Associates Engineering Ltd., which examined water extraction from Harby Road Wellfield in Lantzville.
The engineer reported that under the current provincial licence, the wellfield can extract 1,424 cubic metres per day or 260,000 cubic metres per year. In 2021, the wellfield extracted above both the daily and annual withdrawal limit at 1,618 cubic metres and 273,677 cubic metres, and in 2022 the wellfield extracted even more water at 278,822 cubic metres.
The company attributed the 2021 numbers to the early summer heat dome, and the 2022 numbers to extended dry weather.
It noted that the addition of more single-family lots will put pressure on the district's water use, and included a series of recommendations such as applying to the province to increase withdrawal limits at the wellfield.
Glenn Morphy, director of public works, recommended council not move forward with the policy without a staff report containing legal advice, as he was concerned it was too ambiguous and could lead to unintended legal implications.
"I want to make sure to emphasize that right now the report is essentially just saying we're just over-capacity on the provincial licensing; we're not saying we're at capacity as far as on the overall system, we continue to add connections, that's not the issue," he told council. "It's about the licensing and the licensing at this point in time isn't something that we should be hesitant to provide additional connections."
The motions also had the support of Coun. Rachelle Mundell, who lives in a neighbourhood without water connections and has neighbours knocking on her door asking about the connections being added to their homes.
"For that to come to a development before them when they've been paying taxes and they've been investing in this community for years seems a bit disheartening to have to have that conversation with them," Mundell said.
Mayor Mark Swain excused himself from the discussion after questioning the legality of the motions and disagreeing with the notion of passing the motion pending legal advice.
"I would like to have the legal [opinion] before entering into any further discussion on this motion or even making any amendments to our policies or our bylaws. That, I think, would be the correct way to go, but that's just my opinion," he said.
A policy such as the water connection priorities policy only requires one council vote, and as a result, administration will return to council with an amended policy for approval. However, a bylaw requires three readings and adoption, and so changing the bylaw wording so that council decides on water connections will require a bylaw amendment requiring a series of votes.
The Koers report also recommended Lantzville retain the services of a hydrogeologist to review the district's 2017 data and assess what impacted the lower groundwater levels experienced in 2020-22 and the pumping conditions experienced in the summer of 2023. A motion for staff to submit a request for proposals to bring back the information on the price of hiring a hydrogeologist passed with Mundell opposed.
