Lasqueti 9-1-1 Public Information Meeting

The Board of the Powell River Regional District (PRRD) adopted a motion at their December 17, 2014 meeting to add Electoral Area E (Lasqueti Island) to both the Emergency 9-1-1 service and the House Numbering service.

Why?
The Laqueti Island Volunteer Fire Department is currently dispatched out to emergency fire calls using a combination of local volunteer dispatchers and pagers rented from TELUS. As of March 31, 2015, TELUS will no longer offer this pager rental service and the pager devices currently used by the fire department will no longer function. As the Lasqueti Island Volunteer Fire Department requires a means of dispatch in order to provide its service, staff at the PRRD researched alternatives and concluded that the most reliable option was to approach the North Island 9-1-1 Corporation (currently being used to dispatch fire response calls to all other PRRD fire departments) to determine whether they would expand their service boundary to include Lasqueti Island.  They have agreed to do so, though certain conditions apply.  In order for North Island 9-1-1 Corporation to be able to dispatch fire emergency calls, they require that all dwellings on Lasqueti Island be assigned a house number.

What are the costs?
The direct capital equipment cost for North Island 9-1-1 Corporation to provide fire dispatch services to Lasqueti Island is projected to be upwards of $60,000¹.  This is a one-time cost that will need to be contributed from the tax payers of Lasqueti Island in 2015.  Lasqueti’s annual contribution to operating costs is projected in the range of $7,738, commencing in 2015. 

The one-time cost to complete the house numbering of Lasqueti Island is projected to be approximately $18,628, again contributed in 2015 by the tax payers of Lasqueti Island.  Future operational costs for house numbering are projected in the range of $3,000 total per year for map updating and other maintenance costs which would be shared by all of the five electoral areas³.

The residential tax rate per $100,000 of net taxable value is projected as follows for 2015 and 2016:

House Numbering Project
Staff at the PRRD will begin the process of assigning house numbers/civic addresses to each dwelling on Lasqueti Island immediately.  These house numbers are your civic address only and unless advised to do so by Canada Post, should not be used as a mailing address for general mail delivery.  If your property is vacant, you will not be assigned a civic address.

Mapping department staff will be working with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MoTI) to ensure that the PRRD has the proper road names on which to assign the house numbers.  Numbers will only be assigned off of MoTI registered road names.  No localisms will be used. 

Inevitably, staff will need to speak to property owners when questions arise during this house numbering process.  Your cooperation is requested.  Questions such as these may need to be answered:   “How many dwellings do you have on your property?” and “Where do you access your property - off of which road?”

Public Information Meeting
In order to ensure that Lasqueti land owners and residents are informed about how these services work and what their impact will be, the PRRD will hold a Public Information Meeting.

PLEASE JOIN US:

Friday, February 13, 2015

7 pm

Lasqueti Arts Centre

Questions?
If you have any questions regarding anything contained in this article and are unable to attend the February 13th Public Information Meeting, please contact the PRRD at 604 485-2260 (call collect).

¹ As the projected cost is not firm, a budget of $70,000 has been included as an allocation in case costs exceed the projection.

² Tax rate projections are based on the 2014 Revised Assessment Roll values. Actual tax rates will be based on the 2015 Revised Assessment Roll values and the 2016 Revised Assessment Roll values respectively.

³ House numbering operational costs apportioned amongst the five electoral areas on the basis of the converted value of land and improvements as reported in the Revised Assessment Roll for each electoral area.