It’s a multi-billion dollar challenge still looking for some city council action. The infrastructure crisis facing Hamilton is the most often mentioned election issue among the dozen incumbents running for office. It has also has been flagged by more than 30 of the challengers. That suggests it may be the number one concern of voters even though seriously tackling it will likely be painful for taxpayers.
Mayor Eisenberger and councillors Sam Merulla, Chad Collins and Arlene Vanderbeek told a recent Spectator survey that infrastructure maintenance was one of their key city-wide issues. The latter three plus Tom Jackson, Doug Conley and Terry Whitehead flagged it as one of their key ward issues.
Infrastructure outnumbered references to taxes, the usually most commonly identified major issue in municipal elections. Taxes are a top city-wide issue for Brenda Johnson, Lloyd Ferguson and Judi Partridge, and were also cited in the ward-issues list by Maria Pearson.
It’s likely significant that the latter are all suburban councillors where deterioration of roads is less advanced because they were built more recently. That age status may also explain why the two suburban councillors who say infrastructure is a key issue – Vanderbeek and Conley – have represented older urban areas in Dundas and lower Stoney Creek.
There’s also an obvious connection between taxes and infrastructure maintenance that suggests they may be conflicting priorities. Staff have calculated that a tax increase of 25-30 percent would be required just to prevent the maintenance hole from getting any deeper. At least some experts believe this is the right direction.
Harry Kitchen and Aaron Moore made that argument to the Hamilton “summit” held at city hall in April. Moore contended that “the property tax is good and it’s not a horrible thing to raise it to keep up with inflation year to year.” Kitchen argued that it is “the most accountable tax we have in Canada” and the ideal way to properly fund essential local services. He also declared that taxation of single-family housing is “a hell of a deal” so raising it makes fiscal sense.
Hamilton’s current accumulated shortfall in the maintenance of existing infrastructure is somewhere between $3.5 and $4 billion. It is growing by about $200 million a year. City budget documents prepared by professional staff have reported the same increase for several years, and hence the total shortfall keeps getting bigger.
While the issue has generated a lot of comment, to this point councillors have not asked their staff to examine how the city got into this financial mess, and therefore how it might at least avoid making the problem worse. Instead the main response has been some other level of government – federal or provincial – must provide the monies to solve the infrastructure crisis because Hamilton can’t afford it, and because we are not alone in facing this problem.
There’s no doubt that a shortfall in infrastructure maintenance is a widespread problem across the country and that it is most pronounced in older cities. The crisis is not yet evident in newer subdivisions where their infrastructure hasn’t gotten old enough yet to be falling apart and demanding replacement or major repairs.
Federal and provincial governments do make grants to cities, but both are currently running large deficits and any monies the direct towards Hamilton will almost certainly be earmarked for specific projects – usually new ones like transit or affordable housing. That’s also been the history of government spending – to increase the amount of new infrastructure rather than repair the existing stuff.
A clue to the source of the problem comes from the way in which has been identified and continues to be calculated through life-cycle analysis. Everything falls apart as it gets to a certain age, so a certain amount needs to be set aside to maintain a state of good repair. Cities like Hamilton have not done this, suggesting perhaps that we have built more infrastructure than we are willing to pay for.