Markham asks for disaster relief funds

Markham Economist & Sun
Jan. 17, 2014
By Amanda Persico

Markham council has declared the city a disaster zone.

In a special council meeting Tuesday, council passed a resolution declaring the city a disaster zone in order to ask for provincial disaster relief funding.

Now it’s up to the province’s Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The province’s disaster relief funding program takes into consideration the financial devastation, the magnitude of the disaster and how many residents were affected.

Another condition for the disaster relief program is when restoration costs exceed the financial capacity of the municipality.

Markham’s response and recovery costs add up to about $13.2 million, which includes the cost of replanting and replacing some 10,000 damaged trees.

The city’s initial response phase that included removing hazardous tree limbs and will continue for the next seven to nine weeks is estimated to cost between $2.6 million and $3.2 million.

The province’s relief program will cover items such as clearing and removing tree debris, overtime costs for city employees or those hired for disaster response efforts, activation of municipal emergency operations centre, emergency communications, repair and restoration to pre-disaster condition of uninsured community facilities, such as parks and infrastructure, and evacuation and shelter costs.

Insurance deductibles, equipment costs and lost revenues are not eligible under the province’s relief program.

Also, the cost of replanting trees does not fall under the province’s relief funding program.

The city is estimating between $7 million and $10 million for replanting and replacing trees.

There was some doubt expressed by council if the city will meet the province’s disaster relief criteria in that recovery costs outweigh immediate response costs.

Situations that received provincial funding include the Goderich tornado of 2011 and the Peterborough flood in 2004. The flood in Thornhill in 2005 or the Vaughan tornado in 2009 did not meet provincial requirements.

The city has a more robust tax base than Goderich, the city’s CAO Andy Taylor said.

In case the city does not qualify for disaster relief funding from the province, Markham has also asked the province to consider some other form of funding to help municipalities across the GTA dealing with the same issues as a result of the pre-Christmas ice storm. Markham made the same request to the federal government.

York Region has also asked for disaster relief for its own assets.

Both Vaughan and Richmond Hill have declared a disaster area. Vaughan estimated about $21 million in damages and Richmond Hill about $6.3 million.

Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion called on other GTA mayors to meet and discuss a co-ordinated approach to disaster relief funding.

Mississauga is reporting about $25 million.

Toronto also voted in favour of declaring the city a disaster zone to seek the province’s assistance.

“Each municipality must declare its own disaster area,” Mr. Taylor said. “But that doesn’t preclude a group of mayors showing solidarity to the province. Speaking as one voice will bring more political power to and will help escalate the discussion.”

Mayor Frank Scarpitti said he plans to attend the GTA ice storm recovery meeting Friday.

His goal is to ensure if there is disaster relief coming from either the province or the federal government, a formula is consistently applied to each municipality.

“This incident impacted so many communities across the GTA,” Mr. Scarpitti said. “It was a little pre-emptive of the provincial government to offer assistance to Toronto. The percentage of power outages here in PowerStream territory is not much less than in Toronto on a percentage basis. Add the recovery costs in York Region then Peel add that up and it probably is higher than Toronto.”

Damage from the ice storm across the GTA could exceed $250 million. Toronto is reporting about $106 million in damage costs.