Monday, 24 September 2012 02:00 Ron SeymourKelowna Daily Courier
It's not the kind of item you often come across in the classifieds: A sewer line for sale. But Norris Ash hopes someone will make him an offer he can't refuse for a 1.4-kilometre section of eight-inch pipe he built but was never paid for a quarter-century ago. "It's got a lot of potential value," Ash said Sunday. "To build that kind of line now, I've got an estimate it would cost about $2.5 million." The City of Kelowna has offered Ash $25,000 for the never-used sewer pipe, which runs along Highway 33 between Begley and Joe Rich Roads. No dice, he says. "That felt basically like a slap in the face," Ash says of the city's offer. "It's worth a heck of a lot more than that. We probably wouldn't let it go for less than a million dollars." Ash built the line in the late 1980s for an ill-fated development called Ogopogo Downs, east of Black Mountain. The housing development never materialized, and Ash's company and partners in the project were never paid the $250,000 they were owed. They've retained ownership of the line all these years, believing it's inevitable that development will eventually come to the area. For any potential developer, he says, acquiring the ready-made sewer line would represent a substantial savings over installing a new one. But the right offer has never come along and Ash, now 70 and retired and looking to cash out, hopes the city will change its mind and come up with a higher bid for the line. "The city says they don't expect anything will happen there in terms of development for maybe 20 or 30 years," Ash said. "But it would still be a bargain for them to buy it now, because these sewer lines are designed to last for 100 years or more." "Eventually it'll be used, so why not get it now at a good price?"
No comments:
Post a Comment