SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
City council wants administration to find up to $700,000 to repave a section of 50 Street this year after staff recommended delaying the project yet again to pay for water and sewer work that has come in over budget.

A car drives down a section of 50 Street that city council wants administration to find funding to repave this year. - Shane Magee/NNSL photo

The work is over budget, in part, because the city is paying an outside engineer more than $380,000 in consulting fees while city engineers remained swamped with work on water and sewer replacements at Northland Trailer Park.

Coun. Adrian Bell said work on the one block section of 50 Street between 51 Avenue and 52 Avenue has been put off for too long.

The work was originally planned to be done in 2006 but has been put off several times.

"I think enough is enough," Bell said. "Business owners in that area have been plenty patient and I think it's time."

Council's direction was made at a committee meeting Monday after administration presented memos on paving and water and sewer tenders for 2015.

The first memo states NWT Construction Ltd. was the only company to offer a bid for paving 50 Street, Utsingi Drive and the work on 52 Avenue left from last year. Removing 50 Street from the plan would cut the paving cost down to $1 million from $1.7 million, the memo states. The second memo covers water and sewer upgrades on Horton Crescent and Forrest Drive. Staff recommended council award a $2.3-million water and sewer replacement contract to RTL Robinson Enterprises Ltd. for Horton Crescent.

They also recommended NWT Construction Ltd. receive a $696,435 contract for Forrest Drive between 51A Avenue and Burwash Drive.

AECOM would get $383,970 as it was used by the city as an engineering consultant to review the bids.

The consultant was hired because the city's in-house engineers were tied up with Northland Trailer Park work, according to Chris Greencorn, the city's director of public works and engineering.

The bids, together with the outside engineering consultant pushed the cost $635,000 over the $2.8 million budget set for the infrastructure work.

Coun. Dan Wong said it's frustrating that there have been several projects during the life of the council where the budget estimate hasn't been enough to cover the actual cost. The budget is created using past costs and is done before detailed design work is complete, he said. As design work began over the winter, Greencorn gave an example of a sewer main that was supposed to be in a three-metre wide easement that was actually on private property, five metres deep and next to a trailer. It meant redoing the design for that area.

"Those things we would've never been able to anticipate until the detailed design work was complete," he said.

Wong suggested city engineers should do the design work in advance so more precise costs can be included in the budget. Once the three-year-old Northland project wraps up Greencorn said city engineers will return to planning projects in advance. To cover the added cost of the water and sewer projects, staff recommended not going ahead with a plan to repave 50 Street this year. The added time would allow city staff to "take a closer look at landscaping options for 50th Street that would fall somewhere between a fully landscaped downtown street and the basic downtown street layout that was tendered this year."

The fully landscaped option was something council had decided to cut to save money when drafting the budget last year.

Couns. Bell, Niels Konge and Rebecca Alty pushed back against the administration proposals and said they believe the paving work should go ahead this year.

"I'd like administration to come back in two weeks with some recommendations on where we can find existing money in our piggy bank," Konge said.

The contracts for the water and sewer work still need to be voted on by council.

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