Prince Rupert votes on a stormwater levy
The wettest city in the country has been draining itself on a budget line written for somewhere drier.
Council votes Monday on a dedicated stormwater levy, and the staff report makes the case with one comparison: the city drains two and a half metres of annual rainfall through infrastructure funded like a town that gets eighty centimetres.
The levy would average eleven dollars a month per household, charged by roof and pavement area rather than assessed value — the model that lets the co-op with the gravel lot pay less than the mall with the flat acre of asphalt.
The culvert failures of the past two winters did the political work the engineering reports could not. Three road washouts, one of them under the hospital route, moved the conversation from whether to how much.
If it passes, the first projects are already ranked: the Hays Creek culverts, the McBride Street outfall, and a maintenance crew that exists year-round instead of after storms.
