A whopping 70 per cent of the city’s proposed $30-million-plus capital budget for 2015 would go to consolidating city operations into two buildings.

The capital budget – along with Mayor Dan Curtis’ budget address – will be tabled for first and second readings at tonight’s council meeting.

Details about it and the building consolidation project are already on the city’s website.

The documents show the city plans to spend $21 million in 2015 on the consolidation project which will cost a total of $55 million over the next three years.

The bulk of the cost will come during construction in 2016, when the city plans to spend $33.8 million on construction, with a final $1.5 million set to be spent in 2017.

City staff would move into the new facilities in late 2017.

Many operational services would move out of a number of smaller downtown buildings to the new operations building planned for off of Range Road near Two Mile Hill.

Other day-to-day services used by city residents would be based out of a new structure on the same property on which city hall sits on Second Avenue.

The operations building on Range Road would house fleet maintenance, waste and water services, utility systems, engineering, operations, transportation maintenance and traffic maintenance.

Meanwhile, moving into the new city hall location would be human resources, parks and community development, corporate services, business and technology, financial services along with development services, planning and building sustainability.

In its documents, city staff explained the proposed projects, noting:

“Put simply: buildings have lifespans, and ours are well past theirs. The Building Consolidation Report (found on our website) on the current state of affairs demonstrates that current structures do not meet national building or energy codes and require major upgrades just to maintain basic operation.

“It is more cost-effective to tear down and replace some of our current buildings rather than try and repair or expand them to good working order so they can meet current and future needs.

“Furthermore, city services and operations are scattered across numerous facilities. Replacing existing structures with two new buildings, one to accomodate our services and another for most operations, is the most cost-effective solution for taxpayers, as it reduces operation costs, frees up prime real estate in our downtown core and improves service delivery.”

The city also emphasizes in its documents that any tax increases would not be a result of the building consolidations.

The city proposed in its provisional 2015 operational budget a 2.53 per cent tax increase.

The operational budget detailing whether the city follows through with that plan is expected to come forward at a later date.

“The city is committed to keeping this project tax-neutral, and we have intended for this to be the case since the early planning stages for this project,” it’s noted.

“Maintaining the status quo will however, necessitate tax increases, as that option would cost 2.77 times more than this project over its 50-year life span.”

Rather, $13 million is expected to come from federal gas tax funding, another $13 million would come from city reserves and the remaining $29 million would come from low-interest financing, it’s noted.

“Energy savings and avoided lease costs will reduce financing costs by over $500,000 per year,” the city said.

It is also working to find other potential funding sources, such as the Building Canada fund, the city said.

While the building consolidation work makes up the bulk of the proposed capital projects for the next three years, there are a number of other initiatives outlined in the 2015 budget as well as the provisional budgets taking the city into 2018.

In its efforts under the Solid Waste Action Plan to divert 50 per cent of waste from the landfill by next year and have zero waste by 2040, the city is proposing to spend $253,000 in 2015, followed by another $253,000 in 2016 on implementing the plan.

The budget does not specifically state what the implementation items would include for each year.

Also on the environmental sustainability front, the city would put $16,000 into a commercial organics collection system in 2015, spend $10,000 in 2015 and again in 2016 for “monitoring active transportation”, and $45,855 next year for groundwater protection planning and implementation.

Odour coming from the Livingstone Trail lagoon is also proposed to be dealt with in 2015 and 2016 as the city plans to spend $750,000 next year followed by $1.5 million in 2016 on odour mitigation.

An operations assessment of the lagoon is then suggested for 2017, estimated to cost $90,000.

There are also a number of projects that would include work to roads, implementing plans for certain areas of town while beginning plans for others, street upgrades, replacement of equipment for various departments and other initiatives outlined in the budget documents.

While the city proposes to spend more than $30 million next year on capital projects, the provisional capital budgets for the three years suggest spending $43.2 million in 2016 (with $33.8 million of that going to building consolidation), $9.9 million in 2017 (with $1.5 million going to building consolidation) and $4.9 million in 2018 (with the building consolidation project finished by that point) on capital initiatives.

Those documents will be tabled at tonight’s council meeting.