Calls on provincial election leaders to work towards reducing municipal infrastructure costs
Laval mayor Stéphane Boyer says he is encouraged by discussions held at the Municipal Infrastructure Summit last week on the skyrocketing cost for financing municipal infrastructure.
In a statement, he said he particularly welcomed the Quebec government’s commitment to abandoning the total nitrogen standard in wastewater treatment facilities.
According to Boyer, this measure alone would allow Laval to avoid additional investments estimated at nearly $250 million, without compromising its environmental leadership and commitments.
Boyer is now calling on the leaders of the political parties in the upcoming provincial elections to continue working to sustainably reduce the cost of municipal infrastructure.
In its brief presented during the summit, the City of Laval advocated for a review of the standards it claims have contributed to skyrocketing construction costs, a simplification of government subsidy programs, and an acceleration of the construction permitting process.
Optimizing public funds
The city also reiterated the importance of continuing efforts to pool resources among municipalities and the Quebec government in order to reduce costs and optimize the use of public funds.
With the next Quebec election campaign close to getting underway, Laval’s mayor said he was inviting all party leaders to continue the work begun at the summit.
According to Boyer, controlling infrastructure costs will require decisions that may sometimes be difficult but necessary, in order to preserve the ability of municipalities to invest in the services and equipment their citizens need.
“Municipal infrastructure is becoming increasingly expensive and taxpayers have the right to expect that every dollar will be used as efficiently as possible,” Boyer said in the statement issued by the city.
“Today, we have put forward concrete solutions to reduce costs, simplify processes and increase resource sharing,” he continued. “Now we must have the courage to see this through, and I invite all political party leaders to commit to taking the necessary steps to make our infrastructure more affordable for citizens.”
‘A shared and funded vision’
The memo submitted by the city stated that the City of Laval “aspires to a shared and funded vision to act proactively in order to maintain economic prosperity and vitality while keeping public health and environmental protection at the centre of its concerns and making constructive proposals in this regard.”
The city listed three main priorities: reduce standards that increase construction costs; increase efficiency in the management of government programs; and accelerate the pooling of resources.
The city’s memorandum also offered some additional reflections: creating a more efficient, flexible and predictable funding model, both locally and provincially, while generally respecting taxpayers’ ability to pay; identifying methods for prioritizing the needs related to maintaining municipal assets; and identifying standards and requirements that can be reviewed or reduced to lower infrastructure construction costs.
Bearing costs without revenues
In the document’s conclusion, the City of Laval also maintains that cities in Quebec are responsible for 60 per cent of public infrastructure, but receive only 7.7 per cent of tax revenue, and the deficit in maintaining water and road assets is approaching $50 billion – an amount that could double by 2036 if nothing changes.
“The wastewater treatment plant that serves three-quarters of Laval’s households needs to be renovated,” it continues. “Lacking government funding, the city had to borrow $334 million to avoid delaying a project essential to its residents.
“This episode perfectly illustrates what these Estates General are seeking to correct: a financing model that is neither predictable enough nor flexible enough to keep pace with actual needs, and which shifts a risk onto taxes and municipal debt that municipalities cannot bear indefinitely.”
Memo says cities ready to rethink
The city says it took action to try to address these problems, noting that an “alliance formed with the City of Longueuil to explore the opportunity to launch joint calls for tenders, share plans and specifications and standardize replicable facilities demonstrates that municipalities are ready to rethink their practices to build more efficiently and at a lower cost.
“This initiative directly addresses the central objective of the government’s approach to reducing construction costs,” the memo continues. “This is particularly relevant when we consider that municipalities absorb up to $1.5 billion in additional costs each year, a significant portion of which results from the accumulation of government regulations. Cities are not waiting for efficiency to be imposed on them; they are already inventing it.”
Planning for the coming years
By making asset maintenance the top priority of its financial planning for the coming years, with major financial commitments to water, roads and underground networks, “the City of Laval is fully assuming its share of responsibility,” states the city. “This effort, however determined, is reaching the limits of what a municipality can bear alone.”
The memo closes by saying, “This is not about asking higher levels of government to replace cities, but about re-establishing a partnership commensurate with the challenge: a reduction in standards that increase construction costs, increased efficiency in the management of public programs, and an acceleration of the pooling of resources.”
