Tender troubles

Only one of nine awarded tenders for the waterfront development project has received no additional changes to its budget, says the project manager.

A tender for work on land north of Pier 3 was set to be awarded during Monday’s council meeting, but has since been withdrawn after the lowest bid came in almost double the $1 million budgeted cost.

Project Manager Katherine Dugmore told council that her staff would now look at ways to reduce the cost.

"What I am trying to do is looking for ways to keep our costs down," Dugmore said. "We’re still going through all the individual tenders, line by line and trying to figure out where the differences are."

Council did award one tender but not without some revisions.

Wilco Contractors Inc. received approval for the contract but with a reduction of about $514,000 to the original bid of $2,871,502. Council approved the contract after they eliminated Pier 1 improvements, including the alternate walk way design and the alternate barrier gate system.

The city has awarded a total of nine contracts for the Prince Arthur’s Landing project; excluding the above-mentioned one, four have come back over budget, and four returned on budget.

Only the tender that dealt with the electrical servicing and the sewage pumping station went ahead without any revisions, she said.

Prince Arthur’s Landing received a large share of its funding through the federal stimulus spending program, but work must be susbstantially complete by March 31, 2011 in order to claim it.

Dugmore said working with a "compressed schedule" increases the risk of additional costs and as they wrapped up stage one, the project is two- thirds started.

However, City Manager Tim Commisso said municipalities were ultimately responsible for the project if they didn’t meet their deadlines to get all the tenders approved.

"I think the reality of it is that there is $700 million in projects (across the country) that are still out there and are at risk of not meeting that deadline," Commisso said. "I think what we’re seeing is a recognition that municipalities are kind of holding the bag and they run the risk by not getting their tenders in. The Ontario Premier recognizes that but I haven’t seen anything on the federal level."

Commisso said although the provincial and federal governments are talking about project referrals it didn’t mean that the city should rely on that as an option.

Also on Monday, council deferred a series of changes that would revamp its zoning by-law. City planners have repeatedly said the new zoning by-law will make it easier for developers and residents in the city to build.
The draft by-law first came before council in June before city planners told administration to consult with more stakeholders after some businesses and developers complained.

Since that meeting, the city planning division has met with those concerned to refine the by-law before it went before council on Monday.

"We have been working with individuals and the city solicitor to make revisions and to consider some of the comments to change the by-law," planning manager Leslie McEachern said on Monday. "One of the most significant changes to the document is that we did it electronically. The original 1987 by-law was done by pen and paper. Given the ability to develop the document electronically, we’re a whole lot more accurate."

However, some residents disagreed with what they said was not enough public input into the by-law revision process.

Peter Kuzyk, who lives on Oliver Road, said reviewing the document was like shooting a moving target. Kuzyk said the public did not receive enough time to review the documents properly as the draft by-law went through several revisions and updates.

Murray Chown, senior planner for Novatech engineering consultants, on the other hand praised the by-law as innovative by not reestablishing the same zoning policies.

After hearing both sides, council decided to give the public four weeks to review the by-law before making a decision.

However, with a municipal election scheduled for Oct. 25, councillors said they wanted the matter settled as soon as possible.

"We need to do this and make sure what we don’t do is leaving this up to the next council," Coun. Iain Angus said. "No one is going to be 100 per cent happy with the by-law. Most people in this community have jobs and families and they are not thinking of the individual zoning issues. We have a responsibility as the current council because we started it and now we have to finish it."
Council also passed several applications for rezoning including more parking-space for an apartment building on the corner of Mark Street and Arthur Street. The application requested an expansion of the parking lot for West Arthur Place Ltd by removing a city owned dwelling and garage.

Mark Smith, general manager for Development Services, said the area needed the parking space.

"Parking is a problem in this area," Smith said. "We are aware there are many concerns from residents about parking. I think people are looking for a close space on Mark Street instead of parking further away."

The application was unanimously approved.