Cost of stormwater update could fall to HRM homeowners

Homeowners living in a part of Eastern Passage that frequently floods could be partially on the hook to update the stormwater infrastructure in the neighbourhood.

A year and a half ago Margaret Linton's basement was a mess.

"It came up and up and up and up," she said describing the flooding.

Insurance covered the $10,000 dollar bill to clean up.

The city plans to build a $2.4 million stormwater system for the neighbourhood. If it's approved, the city would pay a third of the cost, Halifax Water would assume a third and the rest would be shared by a group of homeowners.

About 12 to 20 homes have a problem with flooding, but the city wants 94 homeowners to share the cost of fixing the problem.

"We don’t want to have to pay another bunch of money, you know? We need the flooding plumbing problem fixed but I don’t know why it should be shared with everyone using it," said Linton.

Homeowners at the top of the hill say they don't have any flooding problems.

Terry Allison doesn’t have a wet basement, but he's being asked to pay about 10 per cent of the assessed value of his home.

"Oh no no, I couldn’t afford that," he said.

Richard MacLellan, city manager of energy and environment, said it’s a bigger issue than just a handful of homes in the flood zone.

"The water coming from their property is potentially causing the problem for the people at the bottom of the hill so they're actually contributing to the problem," he said.

Residents will vote on this plan in May, but the final say goes to city council.

If approved construction could start this fall. Construction is expected to take about a year.

After that homeowners would be billed. They’d have the option of paying it over a number of years with interest.