Feature article November 18, 2004
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COMRIF is here COMRIF is here!A funding program with the awkward acronym COMRIF (Canada Ontario Municipal Rural Infrastructure Fund) was announced on Monday in Peterborough. The long-awaited announcement means that federal and provincial infrastructure support for rural Ontario municipalities, so long promised, will begin flowing in 2005.
The program will pay 2/3 of the cost of capital projects in rural Ontario municipalities, and could result in up to $900 million worth of infrastructure projects being undertaken in the next five years within the province. Although it is targeted to rural Ontario, the program will also be in effect for many smaller urban areas within the province. It defines all municipalities with a population under 250,000 as rural.
Applications are being sent out to all eligible municipalities within the province this week, and the first intake deadline will be January 10/05 according to Brett McLennan of the Rural Investments Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
McLennan said that it is expected 95% of the eligible municipalities will apply to the program, and submissions will be approved on a competitive, merit- based process. Municipalities can submit one application in each of the three intake periods. The second intake period will be in the spring of 2005 and the final one will be in the spring of 2006.
Water-related projects, including treatment and sewage-related projects, as well as waste management, local roads and bridges, have been identified as the major focus for the program.
COMRIF does not promise a free ride for municipalities. They will be expected to pay 1/3 of the cost of projects, with the provincial and federal governments paying 1/3 each as well. Once applications are received in January, Brett McLennan said that municipalities will be notified by the COMRIF joint secretariat as soon as possible, but added, No turnaround times have yet been determined. Payments would be issued quarterly on invoices that have already been paid.
Local municipalities will be considering what projects they will seek funding for in the next few weeks. For Central Frontenac, completing major repairs on Road 38 will be one project under consideration.
Road 38 was in a state of disrepair when responsibility for its maintenance was downloaded from the province in 1997, and with it came provincial grants totalling about $4,115,000 which was only enough money to do a portion of the needed repairs. Most of this money was spent upgrading the worst parts of the road in 2001, and an engineering study commissioned by the township estimated that the rest of the repairs would have cost about $7 million (in 2001). The township applied for funding under the Provincial OSTAR program in 2001 but was refused, and nothing has been done since then.
If CF Council decides to revisit this project, it will have serious implications for their 2005 budget. A successful COMRIF application will still mean a cost to the township of up to $3 million, which the township will have to finance over several years. However, COMRIF may represent the only chance the township will have to receive any funding support at all for the needed repairs.
(The former township of Portland and the current township of South Frontenac have fared much better with Road 38. The portion that runs through Portland to within sight of the Central Frontenac border was repaired by the Ministry of Transportation before the road was downloaded in 1997)
