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Stave Lake price tag rises

The final cost of the failed Stave Lake water supply proposal has risen.

The final cost of the failed Stave Lake water supply proposal has risen.

Tracy Kyle, the city’s director of water and solid waste, reviewed the project for council on Monday, saying an error in coding was the cause of the oversight.

The total cost now stands at $3.61 million rather than the previously reported $3.54 million.

That figure includes the cost of grant applications, referendum communications and project development costs.

One expense that caught the eye of Coun. Henry Braun was the $326,965 spent by Abbotsford on referendum communications.

“My understanding is we had a budget of $200,000 ... how did we get from there to this?” he asked.

City manager Frank Pizzuto said there never was a set budget.

“When we went to council and said here is the communications campaign, we said that it was going to be in the range of $200,000. When the referendum evolved and we went back to council again and said here’s the kind of things we have to do, the budget escalated.”

Of the $3.61 million spent, almost $2.5 million was for project development costs, which included engineering work and environmental studies. That work could still be useful if the city eventually decides to return to the Stave Lake water supply.

The overall project costs were broken down to $2.5 million spent by Abbotsford and $1.1 million spent by the Abbotsford Mission Water and Sewer Commission.



Kevin Mills

About the Author: Kevin Mills

I have been a member of the media for the past 34 years and became editor of the Mission Record in February of 2015.
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