Feb 27, 2017 - The One with the Solar Farm Report
Council Highlights – February 27
It was a report and presentation filled Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday night. A couple of neat things to go over here! Enjoy!
Correspondence
Presentations: Solar Farm & Byron Dobson Arena
Department Reports
Grants
1. Correspondence
Council received correspondence from the Department of Urban Planning who concurred with the Town’s intent to sell land previously designated as land for public purposes on Runneymeade Rd. We also received correspondence from the PAC with their recommendations to proceed with the rezoning process for this same land.
We also received correspondence from the provincial Department of Transportation denying our request to have the speed limit reduced from 70km/h on Route 112 between Patricia Dr and Townsend.
2. Presentations
We had two presentations. The first was from a company called MCW Maricor who did a review on the Byron Dobson Arena to evaluate its life expectancy. This study is incredibly helpful for our asset management review and also helpful for the Wellness Centre Committee. From the report: “In addition to completing a facilities condition assessment on the arena complex, MCW also completed an energy audit of the building. The conclusions of that audit suggest there are lots of opportunities to upgrade the efficiency of that building, which would result in significant operational savings. Furthermore, another positive fact is a lot of the energy improvements will align with the work identified in the facilities condition assessment”. MCW Maricor made recommendations on what upgrades need to be done to comply with code and what could be done to increase the energy efficiency. The recommendations include things that would need to be addressed over the next 15 years to the grand total of $6Mil.
Table 3.1 - Probable Cost Summary TableAsset
Immediate
$12,000 Site Work
$36,300 Building Exterior
$28,000 Building Interior
$1,200,000 Upper Rink Floor Slab and Header Replacement
$5,000 Upper Rink CO Controls
$50,000 Lower Rink Ventilation and CO Controls
$200,000 Refrigeration Plant MCC and Controls
$28,000 Ice Plant B51 Code Compliance
$115,000 Upper Rink Sprinkler
$15,000 Plumbing Backflow Prevention
$40,000 Lower Rink Dehumidification Replacement
$11,000 Miscellaneous Electrical
Sub-Total $1,740,300
Short Term (1 – 5 Years)
$116,250 Building Interior
$1,825,000 Refrigeration Plants
$198,500 Mechanical Systems
$258,500 Electrical Systems
Sub-Total $2,398,250
Long Term (6 – 15 Years)
$10,000 Building Exterior
$56,250 Building Interior
$1,200,000 Lower Rink Floor Slab and Header Replacement
$195,000 Mechanical Systems
$216,000 Electrical Systems
Sub-Total $1,677,250
Energy Efficiency (ECM’s)
$92,000 - Utilize low emissivity ceilings in Lower and Upper Arena.
* Note: All other Energy Efficiency upgrades will be captured through the capital renewal exercise.
Total $5,907,800
By comparison, to completely rebuild an exact version of the arena as it is now, it would cost about $18Mil. During the meeting I inquired as to whether or not there would be any cost savings to simply add two new ice surfaces to the plans for a new Wellness Centre and repurposethe Byron Dobson Arena. Doing that would still require the refrigeration plants, change rooms etc… and so, while it may not quite be $18Mil to add this to the Wellness Centre, the cost savings would be insignificant.
The second presentation was from Naveco Power. The town had been looking into the possibility of using the old dump property on Pine Glenn rd for a Solar Farm. We would be able to generate about 4 Megawatts of power with the available space. Naveco Power looked at a few options. NB Power, through the Locally Owned Renewable Energy Small Scale (LORESS) program, can offer support for getting projects like this up and running. The deadline to submit expressions of interest to NB Power is April 28, 2017. Naveco Power does not recommend this option for a couple of reasons. The first being that we will not be able to get a proposal together before the deadline but the second is that the return on investment for this project would not be significant enough to invest such a large amount of money to get it set up.
The second option presented was to look at net metering, which allows customers to generate their own power for their own building. In NB, power cannot be sold to third parties but the proposal was that we could use solar power generation on the arena to run that facility. Council passed a recommendation to defer its LORESS application and have staff still continue to investigate possible funding sources and other partnership models.
3. Department Reports
A few highlights from the various department reports:
The Province is proposing changes to the Municipalities Act. We have a team in place to review those changes to see how the town may be affected. Once piece we are looking for in particular is related to the enforcement of unsightly premises by-laws.
Council passed a recommendation to endorse the changes made to our Municipal Specifications document. The changes now become part of the Standard Municipal Specifications and are to be used on all capital projects, new subdivision work, any work conducted on public streets within the Town, all utility companies conducting work with the Town right-of-way, and private contractors connecting services to the Town water and sanitary and sewer infrastructure.
Fire department noted increased calls due to the ice storm
Public consultation for Ridgeway Park will be on March 22 at 6:00pm in Town Hall. We are thrilled to see this park receiving upgrades!
Business Collective had a tour of ECO 360 followed by a networking meeting.
4. Grants
Council passed recommendations to award the following:
$750 - NB East Bantam Female AAA Hockey Championships
$2500 – Riverview Skating Club
$1500 – Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
We now have $18,823 remaining in the grants fund for the rest of 2017.
As always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out at aleblanc@townofriverview.ca.
