The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District (SLRD) will get hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for community projects, following the renewal of a provincial funding agreement.
The Community Works Fund Agreement is an active agreement between the SLRD, and province, and the Union of British Columbia Municipalities (UBCM) to fund infrastructure and capacity-building projects in local governments, and the agreement has been renewed for the next 10 years.
As explained in a staff report to the SLRD board of directors, the province will receive some $1.6 billion in funding from the federal government over the next 10 years, with those dollars to be vended out by UBCM to local governments across British Columbia based on population.
For the SLRD, that means it is expected to receive about $381,511 annually from the funding stream.
The SLRD has recently dipped into the funds already on the books from the previous agreement to pay for items such as water and sewer projects across the regional district. As an example, $160,000 went towards the replacement of water infrastructure in Furry Creek.
The funding stream is vital to the SLRD’s ability to renew aging infrastructure which must be replaced in order to ensure continual services for residents, making the renewal very welcome to the local government.
The new 10-year agreement is an update to the previous agreement in place since 2014. According to SLRD staff, there were no major changes to the structure of the program, and more projects are now permitted to be funded.
In short, disaster mitigation projects have an expanded scope; the SLRD can now put money towards new fire trucks as standalone projects; money can be spent on feasibility studies that are not tied to specific projects down the line; and housing assessments and planning are also now eligible for funding.
Other eligible projects carried over are wide-ranging, such as local roads and bridges, airports, public transit, drinking water, community energy systems, sport infrastructure, cultural infrastructure (arts, humanities and heritage projects) and capacity building, among other things, with seemingly only health infrastructure excluded. Hospital funding and projects are the domain of the local hospital district board.
There are some changes to who owns the projects funded, however. As explained by staff at the July 24 board meeting, the province has shifted the focus of the program to be on municipally-owned projects over third-party projects the municipality seeks to support.
“Because an external project can be approved, the board must identify that the project has a regional or municipal priority with long-term capital investment plan,” said the SLRD’s deputy director of finance Colin Hodgins.
“The board must ensure they have not prioritized a third-party project over a local government-owned priority project, and the project must be supported by capital management planning.”
Including the anticipated funding for 2024, the SLRD has $746,748.11 in its Community Works Fund that can be applied to the various eligible projects as they come up through the year.
At the July 24 board meeting, board members unanimously approved the new 10-year Community Works Fund Agreement between the SLRD and UBCM.
