Saanich residents face a new fee for dumping yard waste and will have the option of an enhanced curbside pickup program as the district eyes big changes for its operations centre on McKenzie Avenue.
Saanich council has unanimously endorsed a program that will introduce a flat fee for garden waste drop-off, a larger curbside 360-litre organics recycling bin option (the largest size now is 240 litres), a new subsidized rate for organics bins and a strategy to prepare for redeveloping the operations centre yard.
Coun. Colin Plant said it will mean an adjustment for people who have been used to a “free” service — the drop-off service was covered by taxes.
“While this is a well-loved service and there will be some people I suspect who will be disappointed that we’re going to start charging, I don’t think we’re breaking the mold,” he said, noting residents of North Saanich already pay for this kind of service, while the Capital Regional District offers a similar paid service at Hartland Landfill.
Plant said the idea behind this is to reduce the number of people using the drop-off service, encourage more people to compost at home and use their green organics bins to get rid of garden waste.
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The fees — $15 for a truck or trailer and $10 for a car or SUV — could be in place by July.
Mayor Dean Murdock noted the changes are all part of a plan to upgrade the operations site.
Redevelopment, at one point estimated to cost more than $200 million, is in the planning stages; the aging site is deemed unfit to handle future growth and the buildings on site require serious upgrades.
The current collection of buildings at McKenzie Avenue and Borden Street are 40 to 70 years old, don’t meet building code requirements and are past their useful life.
Murdock noted concept plans are being revised as a result of some of the changes to Saanich’s operational needs and include a newly purchased three-acre property on Lochside Drive.
The revised concept plan is expected to come to council this spring and might include commercial and residential developments that would better align with the council’s priorities, like hitting housing targets and aligning with land-use plans.
But that will require big changes to the garden-waste drop-off service.
A staff report noted the current drop-off facility is not sustainable in its current location while meeting the future needs of the community.
The report said implementing an interim flat-fee pay-for-service model and redistributing the drop-off service would reduce traffic volume. It would also ensure residents who use it pay for it, discourage non-residents from using the facility, encourage residents to explore alternative options like home composting and curbside collection, prepare for a transition to alternative services like Hartland and create revenue estimated at nearly $800,000 annually.
The program comes with an incentive as Saanich will move to lower organics-cart fees, subsidizing collection through the curbside containers. Currently, garbage fees are cheaper than organic fees.
The cost for a 120-litre garbage cart is $31.50 per year while the 120-litre organics cart is $49.35 per year because organics are heavier, which increases their tipping fees. That means it’s cheaper by volume for residents to use their garbage cart instead of their organics cart.
Murdock said ultimately the drop-off service may have to be moved to another site, but that will all be part of the discussion around the redevelopment plans.
Implementation of Saanich’s greener garbage program in 2014 resulted in a gradual reduction of use of the drop-off program — 68,500 carts have been deployed that collect 11,000 tonnes of co-mingled yard waste and kitchen scraps for compost each year — but not enough to address traffic issues at the municipal yard or the size of the service’s footprint.
The staff report notes traffic has been known to spill onto Borden Street during peak times.
Coun. Zac de Vries said change is necessary to reduce the waste being generated and the right move is to incentivize “the right choice in terms of diverting as much as we can into organics.”
Coun. Nathalie Chambers said the existing operations centre is a keystone site in Saanich and she would like to see restoration of a creek at the site as part of the redevelopment.
“I’m looking forward to the future of this very important corridor and also finding a property for this kind of garden waste and leaves,” she said.
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