REGINA – The only possible advantage to having rough roads are the natural speed bumps.
As children biked along Cardinal Crescent, in Regina’s southeast neighborhood, fathers spoke business.
Robert Grainger has lived on the street for many years and was happy to see the city finally resurface it.
It was a long-awaited face lift for a 55-year-old road.
The problem he’s referring to is the process of fixing his residential road and the bill that came with it.
The now scrapped Local Roads Improvement program was one that had the city fix residential roads, but homeowners on the street would foot 40 per cent of the bill.
The typical process was that streets were chosen by the city, and street residents then had a chance to appeal if they didn’t want the project or didn’t want to pay.
All residents on the street were told beforehand that they would be sent a bill in the range of multiple thousands of dollars.
In 2015, the City of Regina officially changed the way residential road repairs would be paid for and implemented a one per cent tax increase instead.
” All tax payers would contribute to the one per cent residential roadway renewal program and it applies to all residential roadways in the city,” Executive Director of Transportation and Utilities Karen Gasmo said.
However, Cardinal Crescent was technically approved before the bylaw changed. Despite the fact that construction happened afterward, the residents were still sent the roughly $4,000 bill
Some of Grainger’s neighbors told Global News off camera that they really wanted the road fixed and don’t mind paying.
But Robert is arguing that he shouldn’t have to pay the lump sum, plus the tax increase.
“It’s a double shot at the same time and you kind of go like… mismanagement, money grab? It’s definitely both aspects in my opinion ”
The city however says all residents were made aware of the rules and had an opportunity to appeal.
“The local improvement program is governed by a local improvement act. When the program is put into place it is put into a by-law so only changes to that program could be done by council,” Gasmo said.
Robert now feels his next course of action will be to contact his lawyer.
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