Council Gives Green Light For Raglan Street Sewer and Water
-Mayor Sandra Cooper
Collingwood Council has agreed to move forward with design work on water and sewer services to Raglan Street, north of Ron Emo Road and south of Hume Street. Pre-budget approval for the preliminary and final design components of this proposal for an upset limit of $55,000 was given.
Council heard from Bob Wraight, Vice President of Operations at Maclean Engineering regarding the matter. The plant is located on Raglan Street but is without town services. Mr. Wraight told council that the existing septic system in place at the plant would not keep up with the plant's proposed expansion plans.
MacLean Engineering remains a privately owned Canadian company that specializes in the design, manufacture and marketing of high quality mechanized equipment serving worldwide customers in Underground Mining, Commercial and Municipal Sectors.
Maclean Engineering has come out of the economic slowdown experienced over the past two years to the point where Mayor Sandra Cooper says that the plant presently operates with a six million dollar payroll. Cooper said it was critical for the town to listen to what Maclean Engineering is asking for to help them grow in the community. "It is important that we act quickly to provide serviced industrial land. In order to compete with other municipalities you have to be shovel ready. It's an investment in jobs for the future. It gives us a step up on the competition."
Approximately 200 people are employed at the Collingwood operation of MacLean Engineering. The design and manufacturing of industry leading products occur at two manufacturing facilities in Collingwood and Owen Sound. Within the MacLean Engineering Mining Division, continual growth has lead to sales and customer support operations in Val-d'Or, Quebec, Sudbury, Ontario, Thompson, Manitoba, Creighton, Saskatchewan, Phalaborwa, South Africa and Perth, Australia.
In a detailed presentation to council by Collus Executive Director Ed Houghton, it was learned that the cost to install services on Raglan Street between Hume and Ron Emo Road would be approximately 2.2 million to 2.4 million dollars. The town's portion of the price tag would be slightly less than $900,000 dollars.
"Preliminary opinion of probable cost for this project is $2,200,000 and the frontage charges are estimated to $490 per meter of frontage for sanitary sewer and $260 per meter for water. Under a local improvement project, property owners would be responsible for their frontage charges and the Town would be responsible for its own portion
including flankages, etc.
In September all property owners were polled in writing by the Economic Development
Department as to their interest in a local improvement project. There was strong support north
of the railway tracks. Maclean Engineering in particular, require the servicing to expand their
business, otherwise they may have to relocate to their Owen Sound location."
