The City of Moose Jaw continues to delay fixing the Seventh Avenue Southwest Bridge since it is attempting to leverage the provincial government and force it to pay for repairs, a lawyer says.
The municipality barricaded and closed the bridge in Wakamow Valley in 2015 after a flood and ice flow damaged the structure. City hall applied to the Provincial Disaster Assistance Program (PDAP) for funding to repair the bridge. However, the project did not exceed the municipality’s deductive of $2.2 million, so the provincial government declined the application.
The closure of the bridge — constructed in 1954 — threatened the ability of the Thorn and Avery families to access their properties, since they used the bridge to reach their homes, explained David Chow, a lawyer with Chow McLeod Barristers and Solicitors.
Therefore, they have accessed their properties during the past five years by crossing over the Valley View Centre (VVC) property and using Highway 2 to reach Moose Jaw.
The provincial government informed the families in March 2019 that access through VVC would cease on March 31, 2020, since it planned to sell the property — to Carpere Canada. After attempting to engage the municipality without success, the families hired Chow in December 2019 to fight on their behalf.
This is the second part of a multi-part series on this situation. Part 1 is here.
Subdivision of land
The City of Moose Jaw issued building permits to Avery and Thorn in 1978 and 1999, respectively, so they could construct their homes. Thorn’s property is one parcel to the east of Seventh Avenue Southwest; he accesses it via a legal easement over Avery’s property.
“In 1998, when Thorn developed, the city made Thorn sign an agreement that Thorn would not force the city to develop an access road (Green Avenue) … ,” Chow told the Express. “That is why this is so frustrating. The city forced Thorn to accept access via Seventh Avenue in 1998, but then shut the Seventh Avenue access off in 2015.”
Along with the request for the bridge to be repaired, Thorn — through Sunflower Developments — has applied for a subdivision of property that would see both physical and subdivided legal access granted between his property and Seventh Avenue Southwest.
Troubles reaching city officials
City officials indicated early on that they were working with the province on this and would notify the two families when there was news. With the March 31 deadline looming, the parties met on Jan. 24; one day before, city hall released a portion of a 2017 Stantec report on the community's bridge inventory, according to documents that Chow provided. Municipal officials later said they would be in contact about the next meeting.
However, in an email on March 11 to Mayor Fraser Tolmie, city manager Jim Puffalt, and city clerk/solicitor Myron Gulka-Tiechko, Chow wrote that he hadn’t heard from them since Feb. 17 about when their next meeting would be. Furthermore, he had not heard about whether city hall planned to fix a municipal water line that had ruptured in January. This line provided water to VVC and the residents’ homes.
The parties met on April 17 by Zoom conference, with the new city engineer and MLA Greg Lawrence also attending. The municipality provided no new information to the families prior to the meeting, the documents show. The officials later indicated that the municipality would not repair the water line, even though a 1952 agreement with the provincial government shows the city is responsible for maintaining the line.
Contacting the province
In his email, Chow added that he contacted the Ministry of Central Services about who had the responsibility in this situation. This prompted Puffalt to send a letter to the ministry on March 18 about issues with the former VVC complex.
Nancy Cherney, assistant deputy minister of property management division, responded to the city manager’s letter on March 27. Chow provided a copy of the letter to the Express.
The province can fix the bridge
Puffalt wrote that access agreements would be required to authorize a plan for the proposed subdivision for a parcel that Sunflower Corporation wanted to purchase, and for the transfer of another parcel to Wakamow Valley Authority. In response, Cherney wondered what type of access agreements would be appropriate to meet the municipality’s needs and for future access to those parcels.
The historic and approved access route to service both parcels is via Seventh Avenue Southwest, she pointed out. However, since that bridge is unsafe for vehicles, the municipality suggested the province could — as an alternative to access agreements — contribute to the repair or replacement of the bridge.
“The Ministry of Central Services is not prepared to repair or replace this city-owned asset,” Cherney said, but it was interested in identifying other alternatives — Nine Avenue Southwest, perhaps — to access the two parcels.
Conditions on property would be 'restrictive'
The ministry received a suggestion to attach conditions to the property titles for all VVC parcels, which would force a new purchaser to provide access through the site’s existing roadways. However, this seemed “impractical and unnecessarily restrictive” since the new purchaser might not be able to meet those requirements while redeveloping the property.
“Our proposed purchaser, Carpere Canada, intends to develop this site for residential purposes, which will involve the development of road and/or street access,” she continued.
The lift station is yours, mine, no one's
There is a lift station at VVC that Puffalt suggested the municipality could take ownership of it if the province first upgraded it for $132,500 and then paid the city $75,000 to decommission it and demolish the site since the municipality had no long-term use for it.
Cherney wrote that the ministry saw no need to transfer the structure since the municipality intended to demolish it. The ministry planned to tear down the lift station in June anyway. However, the ministry would return the property to the municipality.
The province can also fix the water line
Puffalt also indicated that the city would take ownership of the VVC reservoir and water lines, as long as the ministry upgraded the reservoir and repaired the frozen water line. In response, Cherney said the ministry had already decommissioned the reservoir and closed it.
“With regard to the water lines, as indicated previously, we believe the water line is the responsibility of the City of Moose Jaw, as per the 1952 agreement between us,” she added. “As such, Central Services will not be repairing or removing that water line.”
