Village of Cremona officials are seeking funding to upgrade East Street at a cost of $1,017,000.
Officials applied for the Small Communities Fund (SCF) earlier this year but recently found out they would not be receiving it. If the application had been approved, the provincial government, federal government and the village would have each paid for a third of the project, which would be $339,000.
The village has also applied for $250,000 under the Federal Gas Tax Program, but with a price tag exceeding $1 million, officials said during the Aug. 25 council meeting they would need more funding than that.
Coun. Joseph Shi said he was disappointed the village was not awarded the SCF grant. Other councillors and staff members said they were not surprised, because Cremona is much smaller than other municipalities across the province and there wasn’t enough money to go around.
The East Street project involves completely digging up the road and replacing all of the infrastructure. The street would become a paved road with sidewalks and curb and gutter, and there aren’t many paved roads in Cremona.
“It’s very important because there is a proposed development coming in and by upgrading this street we can improve all our water and wastewater lines and our stormwater lines,” said Luana Smith, chief administrative officer for the village.
Council amended the Land Use Bylaw in May to rezone an 8.5-acre parcel of land north of Cremona School from urban reserve to general residential. The rezoning allows for a potential development that would include duplexes and basement suites.
The potential development provided village officials with the opportunity to apply for funding to upgrade East Street.
“They (water lines) dead end in a lot of parts there and this way we can loop our water lines so people along that road and the new development will have a continuous water flow,” she said.
“That will help with some water issues that some residents have experienced because they’re at the end of the line and it doesn’t loop, it stops, and so sometimes they get debris in their water and this will alleviate that.”
The road has not been upgraded before and it’s been on the village’s to-do list for some time.
