Grand Forks turns to province, federal government for funding to buy flooded neighbourhoods

Grand Forks, B.C.,wants to buy out an entire neighbourhood affected by the floods earlier this year and, despite the hefty price tag, the mayor is convinced other levels of government will stepup.

The plan is to purchase 62 homes in the North Ruckle area and 16 from South Ruckle, two areas hardest hit by the floods in May, and demolish them. The area would then be returned to a flood plain.

"Council had to make some tough decisions on this one," said Grand Forks Mayor Frank Konrad.

"We choose the safest option, rather than the cheapest, because we don't ever want a catastrophic event like this to occur again."

Council voted on the plan last week.

Big price tag

But with a price tag of between $30 million and 90 million, the city is looking to the provincial and federal governments for help.

"Bottom line is that this buyout or acquisition is always subject to the province because the City of Grand Forks would never be able to buy that out.The corporation would be bankrupt," Konrad said.

"It's still contingent on the province and the federal government."

Konrad has been in conversations with the other two levels of government but an agreement hasn't yet been reached.

He said the dollar amount is not the main issue but rather a "shelf ready proposal" that could guarantee the permanence of the solution and that, he said, is the plan's main appeal.

"How many times are we going to go down that same avenue where the areas get flooded?" he told Chris Walker, the host of CBC's Daybreak South.

"The province and insurance companies are not going to keep footing the bill year after year."

Opposition to plan

Not all residents of Grand Forks on onboard with the buyout plan, though.

"This is where people with not a lot of money were able to buy a home and that was us," said Dave Soroka, a North Ruckle resident.

"You get top dollar for a house in Ruckle, you still can't afford to buy a place anywhere else in town or anywhere else in the valley really."

Mayor Konrad said he understands the residents concerns and they "grieve" him but that, at the end of the day, returning the area to a flood plain is the "most practical choice."

"We can't deal from the heart," he said.

"[The province] wanted a permanent solution to this, they didn't want a bandageremedy, so this is what we came up with."

With files from Daybreak South.

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