The best way to make a council happy is to present cost-savings for the municipality and the taxpayers, and a $40,000 gain by staff put Midland council members in the smile zone.
At the recent meeting of council, a report on revised engineering development design standards was presented, which looked at both industry and internal revisions since the last standards were implemented in 2012.
A year in the making, the 140-page draft document addressed the engineering intricacies of submission requirements, design and construction, inspections, roadway design, storm and sanitary drainage systems, water systems, street lighting, and more.
“I found it a little mind-blowing,” said Coun. Catherine MacDonald on the complexity of the report; it was a sentiment shared by Bill Meridis later when he stated: “it’s kind of over my head with being knowledgeable about this.”
However, engineering manager Mitch Sobil was on hand to explain the benefits of updating the standards when MacDonald asked for report highlights.
“In some cases when a developer had come to us and asked how we were going to install a water service – what type of standard is it going to be – there was an inconsistency there,” stated Sobil. “We always revert back to provincial standards where possible, but now with this new standard we have our own set of standard details that we can just hand to a developer, or anybody – even our own designers for our own projects.”
Sobil added: “It’s just overall consistency through the town, which will be huge (for) efficiencies across the board.”
A concern Meridis shared was that developers interested in the town could see the revised standards and potentially “handcuff” them; his question to Sobil was if the revisions were favourable for both developers as well as the municipality.
“That was on our mind throughout the whole process,” replied Sobil. “It’s not just as much a tool for us as it’s a tool for them. We’ve aligned our standards with a lot of the surrounding municipalities in the area that have done updates like this.
“By no means, we don’t want this to be a red tape type of thing for developments. It’s more of an update to industry best practices and a good tool for everybody,” said Sobil.
A concern was made by Coun. Jaz Patel, who shared his feelings that LED lighting “lumens are a little bit on the low end.”
Sobil responded that the streetlights were one of the few unmodified standards, as they had remained consistent since 2012 conversions from the previous standards.
“We’ll review that and as technologies change,” said Sobil, “and if we think we have a lighting issue, we’ll keep an eye on it and verify that we’ll have acceptable lighting levels in developments.”
The comment was followed up by Mayor Bill Gordon who stated, “We have dark sky policies basically for commercial but not for residential, so we need to abide by those in our municipality too, when subdivisions get put in… while not having said lights going into people’s living rooms and what not.
“That’s the balance,” Gordon added. “I think there’s a couple of open complaints about lighting from the (Walmart) Supercentre area that literally lights up Little Lake at night; bounces across and it’s like having lights from a stadium shining across the lake.”
Cost-cutting and ratepayer savings have been a continual factor in many municipal decisions throughout the current term, primarily during budget deliberations. During the 2023 budget, council had approved a $40,000 consultant cost in assisting updates for the standards. However, the report stated that “with strategic work prioritization and competent staff”, the draft document for revisions was kept as an internal project allowing a savings of $40,000 instead.
Coun. Jamie-Lee Ball admitted: “I know at budget time I was a little hesitant to see all of these consultant and external studies coming through, so I like that we used our in-house talent and we were able to accomplish that. I appreciate that, thank you.”
A thankful MacDonald danced around the question of where that savings went and if it could be used to offset taxpayers, but CFO Lindsay Barron responded: “The money would remain in the capital reserves, which is where it’s needed.”
The recommendation by staff was if the draft document were approved by council, it would be finalized with published revisions so it could be used immediately; council approved that recommendation.
The revised engineering development design standards report, including the 140-page document, is available in the council agenda on the town of Midland website.
Council meetings are held every third Wednesday, and can be viewed on Rogers TV cable channel 53 when available, or through the livestream on the Rogers TV website. Archives of council meetings are available through Rogers TV and on the Town of Midland’s YouTube channel.
