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Privately-owned sites eyed by Eastside sewage group

Private landowners sought for the idea of a wastewater treatment facility on their property

The Capital Regional District’s eastside sewage committee is looking for private landowners open to the idea of a wastewater treatment facility on their property.

Last month, the CRD’s Eastside Select Committee released a map of technically feasible sites for wastewater treatment. The maps are based on work done by Saanich and Victoria municipal staff and include areas with private properties.

Now, the committee wants to hear from landowners interested in partnering or selling their land for the wastewater treatment project.

“We want to make sure that private property owners – especially those within identified technically feasible zones – know we are still looking for properties that could work as a site for facilities,” said Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, chair of the Eastside Select Committee.

“We’re interested in learning about both partnership and land acquisition opportunities.”

The CRD has been struggling to recover from its disastrous Seaterra plan, a $788-million project that included a wastewater treatment facility at McLoughlin Point and a biosolids facility at Hartland landfill. Esquimalt halted that plan in July 2013 when it rejected rezoning at McLoughlin, and the B.C. government subsequently refused to intervene to force rezoning.

The Eastside Select Committee is now interested in sites that correspond with zones identified through municipal processes in Saanich and Victoria.  These bubbles or zones are identified on a site map that can be found at crd.bc.ca/Eastside.

The zones include areas like Haro Woods, the Saanich core and pockets within the Quadra, Gordon Head and Shelbourne communities.

Private landowners within these areas are asked to respond by June 24 to eastside@crd.bc.ca with their input. The CRD will continue to receive public input until early July, and a full technical analysis of sites will begin this summer in an effort to select sites by the end of the year.

The province and federal governments have committed about $500 million towards the CRD’s secondary sewage treatment project, while any cost overruns will be the responsibility of CRD taxpayers.

See the map at crd.bc.ca/Eastside.