Quote:
Originally Posted by Demeshio
The land deal WAS originally $6M. Now according to a CBC News article this morning, the cost has now doubled to $12M.
According to Mayor Leblanc: "That's a little bit more complicated than you would think because there's an adjustment formula there based on investment rates but we have set aside for the purchase and environmental clean-up of the land $10 [million] to $12 million."
I'm wondering if they are including the cost of clean-up in the price of purchase, or will it cost even more. Leblanc said the city put aside $10 to $12M for the purchase AND ENVIRONMENTAL CLEAN-UP. I guess we will find out more tonight.
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I want the city to purchase the site, and I want the events centre to go forward; but aside from the political spin to move the public forward on this development, I caution anyone against being too disappointed when, come time for the actual cleanup process, the full costs of the environmental aspect for the centre are realised.
I don't want the cleanup to be as much as $35M. It would be great if it were only a few million dollars; however, I'm taking into consideration the volume of space that must be treated, the fact that cleanup costs have been 'surmised' without any physical tests done to the land (they haven't been able to move anything, yet), along with the consideration of time delay. Inflation is a bitch...as the opening line of your reply indicates.
The Highfield site won't see any shovels in the ground until after 2016, at the very earliest. And after we've moved some earth and old infrastructure,
then we will get a very clear picture of the hazardous materials that must be removed...and the costs.
Actual cleanup costs is not something we will discover tonight; anyone who frequently sees large developments go forward on toxic brownfields knows this. For anyone to so easily accept political spin is a bit naïve. Fortunately, most of us on this forum are not; so, we shall wait and see how accurate these current government numbers are in a few years time...
