Winnipeg infrastructure plan should focus on economic growth: MHCA

The infrastructure plan that pulls together Winnipeg’s long-range planning documents should give higher weighting to sustained economic growth in its criteria for prioritization, MHCA told city officials April 25.

The update to the 2020 infrastructure plan will lay out a 10-year horizon, and is being crafted now for adoption later this year. It prioritizes all funded and unfunded infrastructure projects valued at $5 million or more. As opposed to a strategy, the plan simply sets out what prioritized projects are on the horizon, not how they will be executed.

The plan puts highest priorities on the projects the city is legally obligated to undertake, such as the upgrade to the north end waste water treatment plant. Maintaining levels of service also gets greater weighting in the prioritization process.

MHCA President and CEO Chris Lorenc said while that is understandable, the weighting assigned to economic growth is the same – 7% – as all other considerations assessed for a project.

Infrastructure projects that spin off returns to the GDP, and thereby revenues to the city, should receive greater weight because those revenues make funding of all services possible, Lorenc said.

City officials are in the process of consulting stakeholders for perspectives on how to augment or improve the infrastructure plan.

The exercise, and the resulting document, really should be based on cross-departmental consideration and focus on economic growth, Lorenc suggested.

“We must invest on our critical services, without doubt, but the projects that enable economic growth and therefore increases to revenues need to be given greater attention and priority.”