Residency has its privileges when it comes to Landfill usage

City Landfill Site
Photo from City of PR 2013
Annual Report

City Council addressed the issue of the need to create more space at the City's landfill site, with a first step to set up a new fee structure for those that use the Ridley Island Access Road site.

The topic was one of the items on the to do list for Monday's Council session, with Council first putting in place the process of repealing the existing Bylaw fees and then introducing a new fee structure, that would charge a higher rate to non residents of Prince Rupert to deliver their items to the landfill site.

Council once again called on the City's Financial Officer Corinne Bomben to review the situation at the landfill site, which included the overview as to how the city came to the point where they need to expand the usable area of the landfill site earlier than previously anticipated.

You can examine all of that from the Agenda Package for Monday from pages 26 to 57, the fee schedules can be reviewed from 52 to 57

As for the new fee structure, Non Prince Rupert residents will be looking at an increase of forty percent to use the land fill, while those with City of Prince Rupert residency will continue to pay the regular rate, with a slight increase as approved earlier this year by City Council.

The discussion on the topic focused on the anticipation of large scale industrial development in the future and how projects and renovations outside of the city may have an impact on the City's landfill site, requiring further expansion into the future.


Councillor Cunningham opened up the review with some questions on the nature of the self-funding aspects of the landfill site and how the City found itself in its current situation.

He also had concerns related to enforcement issues at the landfill site and the ability to determine who is and isn't a resident were also some of the items that were raised by Council members.

Councillor Thorkelson also wanted clarification on the difference between resident and non resident when it came to assessing the fees, with  Ms. Bomben providing a breakdown as to how would have access to the resident rates and who would have to pay the higher non resident rate.

Ms. Bomben reassured Council that the new residency aspects of the proposed bylaw change had been passed by the City's legal service, which advised that this was the proper way of addressing the issue.

Concerns were also raised over residents not using the landfill site properly, with observations as to how some were not separating their recyclable items from their household items.

That made the concept of recycling becoming more of a topic that Council believes should be addressing through Regional District and how a larger discussion regarding recycling issues in the community is a conversation that Council needs to have.

The ability to determine where the material that is arriving at the Landfill site has come from, is one issue that the City will have to develop a plan to work on, in order to ensure that they are assessing the proper rate of fee from where the material has originated.

Following the discussion, council voted on the motion, giving it first, second and third readings, moving it towards final approval on Wednesday.

If passed the the fees would go into effect on January 1st.

You can review the conversation on the Landfill fees from the City's Video Archive, starting at the thirty six minute mark to the fifty six minute mark.



A full review of Monday's City Council session can be found on our Timeline feature.

For more items related to City Council Discussions see our archive page here.