City of Waterloo seeks out funding from province for new subdivision

The City of Waterloo is asking for $35 million out of the province’s Housing Enabling Water Systems Fund, which just a giant boost.

On Thursday, the Ontario government announced they were adding an additional $625 million to that fund, which had about $200 million in it. The money is to upgrade or advance municipal water systems.

The city says they want to use the funding to build new water-related infrastructure for a new subdivision set to be built at Beaver Creek Road and Conservation Drive that would provide about 2500 new homes. The infrastructure would also allow for further developments in that area.

Municipalities have until April 19, 2024 to submit an application. The province is only allowing one application per municipality and work should be finished by 2027.

Brad Witzel, the director of financial planning and asset management for the City of Waterloo said Waterloo only met about 60 per cent of their housing target for last year. This new infrastructure would provide a boost to help meet their overall target of adding 16,000 new homes by 2031.

“The projects need to be completed within about 3 years, this was the one project that was far enough along in the process it would have that size to fully leverage the grant opportunity to the maximum value of $35 million,” said Witzel.

“It is from staff’s perspective an aggressive timeline, but one we feel we can accomplish and were certainly excited about the opportunity to hopefully leverage these funds from the province.”

Witzel added the city needs to install all the infrastructure for that area which includes installing water, wastewater, storm water, pipes, a stormwater management facility and pumping stations.

“We would encourage the province when they release this budget and future budgets, these are the types of programs that are really impactful for municipalities to be able to access to get this critical infrastructure into the ground.”

The city is estimating that the whole project will amount to more than $70 million to complete. If they get the approval from the province, the $35 million would help offset those costs.