By Nick Dube

infrastructure

Stormwater fee proposal passed by council

Oct 7, 2025 | 5:21 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Prince George City Council saw a proposed stormwater utility fee brought before them Monday night. The model which would start on January 1, 2027, would have an estimated expense of $9 million and would include operational and maintenance costs. The current estimated expense to taxpayers which are included in property taxes are currently at $103.15 and the proposed fee brought before council is $169.07 which is a difference of $65.92 per year.

Councillor Ron Polillo supported the idea of charging all properties on January 1, 2027 at a lower funding level with phased increases over the next two years in order to reach full funding. Councillor Polillo says asking taxpayers to pay the full tax at once may not be feasible for everybody and despite repairs being needed waiting a little while longer to complete the project is a risk worth taking.

“It’s about being responsible to the taxpayer and to have an increase like that in one shot is a lot for the taxpayer to absorb. We got to this point and it’s been two decades so we can certainly wait a couple more years to get where we should be. So perhaps a little bit of risk, but I think it’s the responsible, approach to not put that big burden on the taxpayer right away.” said Polillo.

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Another option brought to council, was to begin charging all properties the full funding level with annual fees of $169.07 as of January 1, 2027. Councillor Garth Frizzell was in favor of this option as he stated this has been an issue for decades being passed down from previous councils and the work needs to be done now. It was noted that this would be an investment into the community to protect the community from climate change.

“Rather than paying for when crises hit, we should be doing maintenance on the existing system and put the money in now instead of having to pay massively more later because we know that these events have been more frequent in the last few years. Now nobody wants to pay the extra $5.50 a month and $5.50 a month is a lot for some people. I think nobody around that table would be advocating for that kind of Buckley’s response, unless they were willing to take the medicine themselves. It’s awful, but it is also something that we need to do because our infrastructure is has been failing since the 1970s, and we are facing bigger extremes now.” said Frizzell.

The option presented city staff and put forward in a motion by Ron Polillo to begin charging all properties on January 1, 2027 at less then the full funding level with phased increases over two years to reach full funding was passed by a vote of 5-3.