Grey Highlands council has approved moving forward with designs to eventually replace/upgrade a four-bridge system near Kimberley.
At special committee of the whole budget meetings on Jan. 7 and Jan. 8, council wrestled with how to proceed with work that is required on four bridges located on Sideroad 7A just outside of Kimberley. The road is located immediately adjacent to the Talisman lands.
The four bridges require serious upgrades and/or complete replacement. Over the past few years, Grey Highlands has completed 60 per cent of the engineering work required for the project designs. In the 2025 draft budget, staff recommended the municipality take the designs to the 100-per-cent-completion stage in anticipation of moving forward with construction in the near future.
The initial price tag for design was just over $94,000, but staff later amended this amount to $74,000 after checking with the project’s engineering consultants.
The costs of the bridge repairs this year were estimated at about $3.5 million, with town staff identifying $20 million in bridge repairs and replacements across the municipality coming up.
The project was one of the more contentious items on the list of capital projects council considered at the committee meetings. Initially, council defeated the project in its entirety in a 4-3 vote with Deputy Mayor Dane Nielsen and councillors Paul Allen, Nadia Dubyk and Joel Loughead opposed.
However, immediately after the item was defeated, staff appealed to council for some direction on the project as one of the bridges is at the stage that it requires critical work to stay open.
“We’re at the point now we will have to do something with (bridge) E12,” said Chris Cornfield, director of transportation and public spaces.
Council has been wrestling with how to proceed with the repairs needed for the four bridges for several years. Staff noted that should one of the bridges fail, there would be no other road access for several residents living on Shivlock Sideroad.
Mayor Paul McQueen pointed out that the municipality has two applications for significant development on the Talisman lands. He said, should those applications move ahead, the increased traffic may require the bridges be upgraded/replaced. McQueen suggested the developers should help with the costs.
“Is this a little bit premature?” McQueen asked, who suggested that council consider linking funding for the bridge projects directly to the applications from the two developers.
In response, CAO Karen Goven told council that it was possible to potentially recover a portion of the costs to repair or replace the bridges through the development charges process down the line. The CAO said the municipality would have to use the development charges process to identify growth-related costs of the project and amend its development charges bylaw to recover those costs. She also cautioned council about directly linking the bridge costs to the two development applications.
“I think that could be construed as interfering in the planning process,” said Govan. “We have to let development charges take care of that process.”
Shortly after council voted to defeat the project, a reconsideration of the matter was suggested by one councillor who had voted in favour of the project.
“I think it’s very important,” said Coun. Dan Wickens. “If we don’t do it now and the bridge fails, what are we going to do?”
Council subsequently voted in favour of a reconsideration of the item, which brought the original resolution back to the table for a second chance. Council then debated whether to do the engineering design work for all four bridge structures or to stick to the one bridge with critical needs.
Coun. Joel Loughead suggested another option to fixing or replacing the bridges.
“I think we need to seriously consider an alternative route through the Talisman lands,” he said.
However, that option is complicated as the Talisman lands are privately owned.
Before making a decision, council deferred the matter to the next day’s meeting to allow staff the time to seek updated information about the projected costs for the project.
The following day, staff updated council on the costs. The work to bring the design for bridge E12 would cost $10,000, while the cost for all four bridges was updated to $74,000.
After receiving the updated information, council voted 6-1 in favour of funding the engineering work for all four bridges from the tax levy. Loughead was the lone opposing vote.
The approval of the spending for the bridge projects is tentative, as it was made at committee of the whole and council could revisit the decision later in the budget process.
