City council voted Monday night to move the storm water utility bylaw to its third reading at the next council meeting.
During 2025 budget talks, council approved the creation of a storm water utility to fund the city’s storm water infrastructure and operations.
In February, council adopted a flat monthly fee of $9.80 per property, regardless of lot size or runoff.
The bylaw received its first two readings on June 23, but council tabled it before the third reading and referred it back to executive committee for further discussion.
Concerns raised at the June 23 meeting included storm water connections—particularly whether older buildings would be grandfathered—and exemptions under the bylaw, along with the process for requesting an exemption.
The revised draft bylaw presented Monday removed Section 8, which dealt with storm water connections, as it was redundant to the Building Bylaw.
“Because of the overlap—and we don’t want to see that between this bylaw and the Building Bylaw—we chose to remove it, and we also chose to remove all the corresponding definitions related to Section 8,” said city manager Maryse Carmichael.
The proposed bylaw would exempt parks, cemeteries and community gardens. Parks represent 114 properties, cemeteries account for two, and the number of community gardens is unknown but assumed to be small. The exemptions are expected to reduce annual revenue by about $13,642.
Agricultural properties within city boundaries would not be exempt.
“As we look at all the properties that have one of the 16 different codes for agricultural land, we can see there’s really a mix in those categories,” Carmichael said. “It’s a total of 272 properties we’ve identified.”
Previously, the bylaw stated that exemption approvals would be at the city manager’s discretion and final. The new draft includes an operational guideline detailing the process for exemptions.
The storm water utility is expected to generate $1.6 million annually based on 13,701 properties.