The B.C. government announced Wednesday that it will provide the Village of Lytton with $8.3 million to support its operations and recovery following the massive wildfire last year that virtually wiped out the community.
About 75 per cent of that funding, or $6.26 million, will be sent immediately to help address the water and wastewater system, legal and governance issues, debris removal, and environmental and archaeological remediation.
The other 25 per cent, about $2.1 million, will support the village through three years of core operations and help offset the loss of its property tax base.
The province also introduced legislation to enable council to repeal and recreate a full suite of bylaws, after all of the village’s records and backup servers were destroyed in the fire. The content of many existing bylaws remains unknown.
“The village rebuild has been incredibly complex and the documents’ recovery is no exception,” Mayor Jan Polderman said in a news release.
“We are grateful to now have access to funding in order to put in place the framework and increase capacity to get the reconstruction underway, which will allow us to ramp up the infrastructure rebuild.”
According to BC Assessment and Emergency Management BC, 187 of 193 of residential and business properties in Lytton suffered damage that resulted in a partial write-down of their assessment for 2022. Of the 187 damaged properties, 124 – or 66 per cent – were materially damaged or destroyed.
Earlier this month, the Insurance Bureau of Canada estimated that insurance losses had surged to $102 million.
The cause of the fire has still not been determined.
– with a file from The Canadian Press