municipal

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

GASPÉ: – Steps are still being taken to potentially file a legal appeal against the architects and engineers who designed the plans for the ongoing work at the Town Hall.

“It’s still in the process. I can’t go into it any further,” said Mr. Côté.

When asked whether the parties are in discussions or if a formal notice has been served, the mayor once again remained cautious. “We’re at the legal level, so I’m going to keep a big reserve on my comments. We’ll let the legal specialists chat among themselves. I don’t want to interfere in the process,” replied the mayor, who is a trained lawyer.

The contractor in charge of the project had discovered a problem between the design of the building’s façade wall and what had been agreed upon during planning, a surprise that should have been noted by the engineers and architects when designing the renovation plans, Mr. Côté indicated in July.

The additional costs amount to $700,000. The Town had adopted a $4.3 million borrowing bylaw, which included plans and specifications, and the work contract was initially set at $2.9 million, representing a savings of $1 million.

“It had pleasantly surprised us, but the million has melted like snow in the sun. One of the issues we have is that we have no guarantee that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs will extend the missing amount. The ministry pays 65% of the bill after the call for tenders but now they do not want to go back up to the amount initially planned. It’s not our fault if there were errors in the plans and specifications,” said the elected official.

Rue des Touristes

Work to protect Rue des Touristes, located in the Anse-à-Valleau sector of Gaspé, will not be done until 2026. The street, which has been highly vulnerable since a devastating storm in December 2016, will face a ten-year wait before it receives adequate protection but, even then, the solution may not resolve all the problems, according to the mayor.

“It required financial assistance from Civil Security and it took a long time to agree on the principle of compensation in he case of bank erosion. It was a very long and painful process, from ministry approvals to everything. In short, it was endless,” comments the mayor of Gaspé, Daniel Côté.

Once this step was completed and a financial agreement was reached, in which Quebec pays 75% of the estimated $4 million cost, plans and specifications were ordered in June at a cost of $644,000.

“If we didn’t need environmental studies, the work would have been done before the end of 2025 but we know that environmental studies always have delays of a year, a year and a half, two years, which means that there will be no potential work until 2026,” calculates the elected official.

He hopes that work will begin in early 2026 to be completed by the end of the year. “The high tides have been around for eight years, and there is still about a two-year delay left. I understand the exasperation of the people in the area,” says the mayor, who considers himself lucky that no new storm has hit the area.
However, the battle to protect the coastline is far from over.

The Ministry of Public Safety only wants to pay for the riprap for the area affected by the 2016 storm, leaving the ends of the planned work vulnerable.

“We fear the end effects. When the water hits the riprap, it will affect the sides of the riprap and create new erosion zones. We fear this effect, our specialists have these fears, but the ministry does not want to pay. We will continue to make the ministry see reason,” says the mayor, who indicates that approximately 20% of the work remains to be completed.

The plans and specifications address this end effect, which is defined as the turbulence caused by water striking the ends of a structure and eroding the soil of unprotected neighbouring properties. Severe erosion zones could emerge, potentially leading to significant land loss for neighbours.

“If we let nature take its course, it would take away the road and relocate dozens of houses. In short, we would have had to practically close the village if we had listened to what the people from the ministry told us at the beginning. No one had noticed that the road was the next to disappear and right after that, it was houses. It took them a while to realize that it didn’t make sense to let nature take its course unless we decided to condemn the village of Anse-à-Valleau. As a town, we weren’t ready for that,” says Mr. Côté.
In the event of another storm causing further damage, the mayor believes that an emergency decree could be issued to bypass environmental regulations and allow for the street’s reconstruction.