While the City of Estevan patiently awaits movement on residential development of The Meadows north of Wellock Road, they are taking a proactive approach to developing residential lots south of Wellock Road.
Identified by the title Parcel F, the City is moving forward with infrastructure work to make roughly 21 new lots available near the St. Joseph's Hospital, which the City purchased.
During their regular meeting on May 26, city council approved allocating $200,000 from the 2014 water and sewer utility program to provide temporary sanitary sewer services to the Parcel F development, which will redirect the sewer until a larger main is constructed.
The construction will include a temporary pump station that will service the 21 new lots as well as the new water reservoir washroom and future residential lots north of Wellock Road. From the pump station, the sewage would be run 370 metres east of the pump station to a receiving manhole located at the rear of the existing development by Irvine Crescent.
Mayor Roy Ludwig said they have been in talks to have the lots equipped with power and telephone lines in the next couple of months.
"We already have them serviced with sanitary and water mains," he said.
"The whole idea with that area of development with Parcel F and also with Essex, for those projects to move forward we had to have a sanitary sewer main because our sanitary system simply can't take any more at that end of the city. We're looking at around a $3-million sanitary main being built, which Essex is working on with their development adjacent to Wellock Road," said Ludwig. "But until that moves forward and is built then we have to have something so that we can move forward and sell the lots."
He noted though the sewer line is temporary it will stay in the long-term if needed, and the report council received said there may be an opportunity to re-utilize the pump station in another location currently near services with a sanitary sewer and station, though that must still be researched and confirmed. The station may not be of any use in the future.
Ludwig said it's important to install the temporary line in order to expedite the development process.
"Until that sanitary main is built we can't sell the lots because we would have no availability to the sewer," he said. "This will give us the option of running the sewer into an existing sewer main, which will take the capacity, and we can move forward with this larger sewer main in the valley, which will be needed to supply the development of Essex."
He said despite the long slog toward the construction north of Wellock for what has been called The Meadows, the developer is still interested in the project.
He said the City is moving forward with Essex with the understanding they will be tendering the sanitary sewer main for that area this summer.
"That has been in progress for some time. We're still in discussions with Essex. Optimistically, we're still moving forward with their development, which includes the sanitary sewer main," said the mayor.
For the Parcel F lots, the city plans to begin selling the properties soon, though they still need to determine lot prices and must set architectural controls.
"We hope to look at selling these lots within the next month or so," said Ludwig.
