Steeprock is requesting that the District take on the role of maintaining the roads in the Steeprock Mobile Home Neighbourhood.
This was something the District was doing up until 2019, when a number of the other stratas in town requested the same level of service at their stratas.
Steeprock is a strata, which means that owners not only own their own property but “also own an equal share split with all other strata owners, the common property of the strata such as common roads, parks, boulevards, buildings and infrastructure within the strata lands,” according to a report to council back in 2019.
According to the Strata Property Act, [SBC 1998] Chapter 43, Part 2 (3) “the strata corporation is responsible for managing and maintaining the common property and common assets of the strata corporation for the benefit of the owners.”
In order to maintain these shared spaces, Stratas typically establish an operating fund and contingency reserve fund and collect strata fees to pay for these expenses.
There are a number of other Stratas around town, but these are typically either business areas (the building shared by the Baptist Church and Wild River Adventure tours, amongst others, is a Strata) or condominiums.
In 2019, there was a request made by the District of Tumbler Ridge to the Steeprock Strata to consider either paying the district an hourly rate to provide winter snow clearing services (at a discounted rate), or to seek the services of a contractor.
“However, according to the District of Tumbler Ridge records, there was no response made by the Steeprock Strata,” writes the new Steeprock council in their presentation to council. “The Steeprock Strata has hired various contractors over the years to provide the seasonal road maintenance. Which has been very challenging to have the roads kept up. We feel that it would be beneficial, not only for the residents of the Steeprock neighborhood, but also for the emergency services that operate in Tumbler Ridge.”
Steeprock is a unique area in Tumbler Ridge in that unlike other Stratas, they write. “It is not an apartment building, but rather a community.”
They say that council has the option to make the decision that Steeprock is materially different than the other stratas in the community, “and as such deserving of snow clearing and other services.”
In the 2019 report to council, it states that the district’s responsibility is to “provide services that all other residential property owners receive such as water, storm and sanitary services to the property line, solid waste collection services is also provided to the individual properties inside the strata corporation.
“Currently the District is still providing road maintenance, water, storm, sanitary and solid waste collection services. The District recovers costs for water and sewer repair services performed on individual private strata properties but not for work on roadway infrastructure. Solid waste collection is collected as with all residents of the District on a scheduled weekly basis. Road maintenance such as pothole patching, paving and crack sealing is now being done by the Strata Corporation and has been since at least 2005. Snow plowing, clearing and removal is still being performed by the District as part of the regular winter operations.”
While council made the decision to make the responsibility of street clearing the stratas in 2019, it was not the first time the issue had been discussed.
In 2005, there was a motion by council to direct staff to send a letter to Steeprock asking that they “consider either paying the District an hourly rate for snow clearing services or seek the services of a contractor to provide those services.”
That was in August of 2015; according to the report there is no record of a response, and the district continued to provide street cleaning services until 2019.
“The current services that are delivered through bylaw that the District is responsible for are, solid waste collection, water, storm and sanitary connections which are delivered to the property line,” says the report. “When it comes to snow clearing and removal, there are no current bylaws or policies in place that allow or restrict the services on private properties.”
According to a report presented at the time the cost per snow event would cost the district $358. The council of the day decided that it wasn’t fair to provide these services to one Strata above another.
According to the letter from the Steeprock Strata Council, Tumbler Ridge has 1551 dwellings, 185, or 12 percent, in Steeprock.
“As we are all residents of the same district, with the vision of building a more diverse and resilient community as one; we come to you with our hat in our hand, requesting the District of Tumbler Ridge to consider providing seasonal road maintenance to the Steeprock neighborhood, as a regular service or at a discounted rate as previously proposed.”
This would include snow clearing, sanding, berm clearing, road sweeping.
Council considered the matter at the August 5 meeting, which was after the paper went to press; more on the matter in the next issue, or as information comes available.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
