Drainage, traffic safety dominate ward meeting

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This article was published 19/04/2023 (1261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Drainage improvements in southeast Brandon will likely be finished six to eight months later than expected, city officials said at a ward meeting held at the Riverview Curling Club on Tuesday evening.

Much of the discussion at the meeting, held for residents of wards 6, 8 and 10, surrounded Brandon’s two $30-million water projects — the southwest lift station and the southeast drainage projects.

The latter project specifically involves the wards included at Tuesday’s meeting, aiming to increase drainage capacity and speed in several phases over the next several years.

In recent years, residents of southeast Brandon have complained about how large amounts of rainfall cause back alleys and streets to flood.

Because of development in the area, general manager of development services Mark Allard said the fifth and final phase of the drainage upgrades is now expected to be completed in late 2025 or early 2026 instead of early 2025.

The first phase of the project will take water from the retention pond near Crocus Plains Regional Secondary School and drain it to a new retention pond away from developed areas to near Zenith Paving’s lot by 17th Street East.

That, he said, is a temporary measure to provide the so-called Crocus pond with drainage before larger works are constructed to drain water right into the Assiniboine River in future phases.

A tender for the project is expected to be issued this summer.

Phase 3 will focus on affected areas north of Richmond Avenue and west of First Street. The fourth phase will involve installing a pump in the Crocus pond that will reintroduce water into a parcel of land across First Street from Portola Road.

That parcel is home to the endangered small white lady’s slipper orchid. The city previously came to an agreement with the Nature Conservancy of Canada and the developer of a nearby housing project to create an urban preserve for the at-risk flower.

According to Allard, the hydrology of the land has been disrupted and the pump will be operated in an attempt to restore it.

A related project aims to create a new drainage pond near Brandon Municipal Cemetery, for which work started last year.

Last year, the city held an open house at the curling club to inform residents about the drainage project and the timeline. On Tuesday, Allard said due to delays relating to development in the area, the timeline for completion has been pushed back by six to eight weeks.

One resident at the meeting expressed concern that a drainage ditch in her neighbourhood was overflowing due to cattails growing in and around culverts that flow in and out of it. She said she was told maintenance would be done last fall but hasn’t seen any work on it.

Another resident talked about flooding in a retention pond near Park Avenue and Garwood Drive in the east end.

“It’s wet enough to grow rice,” he said.

General manager of operations Patrick Pulak said part of the issue is that area is very flat and makes it hard for water to drain. There was also overflow from a storm sewer on Richmond Avenue.

He expressed hope that adding capacity to southeast drainage would allow that area to drain more quickly.

Both Pulak and Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) both touted local rain barrel and rain garden projects as a way residents can help reduce the amount of rainfall that drains from building gutters onto streets.

With new drainage ponds in the area, one resident wanted to know if the city would be fencing them off since they’re in close proximity to schools. Allard and Pulak said they would not be fenced off, but that in studying similar ponds in Winnipeg, they found that cattails and bull rushes growing in the pond provide a natural barrier that prevent people from getting too far into the water.

While discussing the southwest lift station project, one resident asked why the city had waited so long to apply for grant funding to help pay for the project and raised concern that developers hadn’t paid their fair share toward the project.

Though Pulak admitted it was probably too long in coming, he promoted the city’s development cost charges as a way the city will recoup funds for the project in the long term.

“I will dispel a rumour,” Pulak said of the project. “It will not just benefit one certain developer. It will benefit growth everywhere.”

Addressing the time it’ll take for the development cost charges to recoup the costs, the woman remarked: “We’ll all be dead by then.”

In case of power outages, Allard said the lift stations will have emergency generations installed to keep water moving.

Traffic safety around Maryland Park School was also discussed at the meeting. Coun. Tyson Tame (Ward 10) said it has become clear Maryland Avenue was built too narrowly to accommodate the growth in the neighbourhood.

Aside from drainage, Tame said traffic near the school is his No.1 priority and said he was worried the addition of more portable classrooms might only worsen the problem.

The city and its partners at the Brandon School Division are currently looking into ways to improve pedestrian safety, he said. A meeting between the city and the school division is scheduled for Friday to discuss possible short-term and long-term solutions

Allard said it is unlikely any large moves will be completed before the end of the school year. Brandon Police Service Chief Wayne Balcaen said the addition of two new bylaw officer positions in this year’s budget will allow for traffic violations to be more tightly enforced going forward.

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