ESTERNAZY — An issue from Contract 6 for the work at Esterhazy’s new water treatment plant was brought to the council table last week. During the March 13 regular meeting of council, a civil works change order regarding that contract in particular, which was awarded to Hwy #1 Contracting Ltd., required approval.
“When we did Contract 6, the Town of Esterhazy had originally budgeted $1.7 million for this contract back in 2019 when we were going to build the water treatment plant pre-COVID,” said Esterhazy CAO Tammy McDonald. “Now, we’re in the building phase of it.”
When Contract 6 was posted for tender, only two responses came back — one for $4.6 million and the Hwy. #1 bid of $2.6 million, which the town opted for.
“We still were happy with that price at that time,” McDonald said, adding how the project has since been split up with other local contractors performing some of the Contract 6 work which brought the bid down.
“However, it should have been the $2.6 million,” McDonald said. “Now we’re in the works of it, we’re doing some discussion, and we need to do a change order of $600,000. Even with that change order, we’re still under that original $2.6 million that was going to happen.”
In civil works, a change order is a formal, written document to modify the original contract and must be agreed upon and signed by all parties involved.
“Typically, on some change orders, we don’t bring them to council, they just go to committee, and the committee approves them,” McDonald explained. Due to the large dollar figure of the change order, she wanted to bring it to council’s attention.
Councillor Dana Paidel gave some perspective from a recent WTP committee meeting.
“Hwy. 1 (Contracting Ltd.) hasn’t been able to finish some of the work that they had contracted last year because they need some of the stuff in place at the water treatment plant so they can put drainage in and finish the drainage,” he said. “The east side has to be built up so we can put the new reservoirs in. Basically, this is to put the new water and sewer line in from the Cemetery Road and take it to the corner of Maple and Sumner Street, so that whole road’s going to be dug up for roughly a month.”
When put to a motion, council approved the civil works change.
Brylee Developments delegation
Darcy Borys, the owner of Brylee Developments, appeared as a delegation during last week’s meeting of Esterhazy Town Council. Brylee Developments is a development in the RM south of Esterhazy.
“I’m here today just to see if the council will be opposed to any type of change of use of existing land I have developed in Phase One on acreage lots,” Borys told council.
The idea is to change lot sizes, accommodating two to four lots on what is currently one.
“What I’m proposing to do is put smaller homes in, some more affordable housing, which everybody seems to be looking for right now,” Borys explained, giving an example of a 1,000-square-foot home on a quarter-acre lot. Currently, there are 17 lots in the development’s first phase, Brylee Estates, ranging from 2 to 3.39 acres each. So far three lots have been sold on the land just south of Esterhazy.
Borys had also met with the RM of Fertile Belt Council with no opposition from that council, and while still in the early planning stages, he’s anticipating at least a 10-month wait before changes can begin.
Town council did not oppose the lot size change and will seek more information in the meantime.
“We’ll do our research and we’ll get back to you,” Mayor Randy Bot told Borys.
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