When the Capital Regional District conducted its preliminary study on Hartland as a site for a plant to recover methane from sewage and household garbage, it anticipated the smell would be “severe to extreme.”
The study calculated that nearby properties would lose up to 25 per cent of their value.
There are few homes near Hartland, but Vic West and Saanich along the Gorge are as densely populated as any area in the region.
If a thousand homes lose an average of $100,000 each, residents will be shorn of a billion dollars in equity, and Victoria, Saanich and Esquimalt will lose more than $5 million annually in property taxes as new assessments come in.
These individual losses will total more than the projected cost for the entire regional sewage system.
Aside from serious safety and public-health considerations around putting a sludge plant in the heart of a residential area, some genuine consideration must be given to economic and social concerns now, not after the foundations are already poured on Viewfield Road.
Rob McCarvill
Victoria
