Non-band residents at Semiahmoo told to pay $50K by month’s end or leave

SEMIAHMOO (NEWS 1130) – Come up with $50,000 by the end of the month, or you have to go. That’s what the non-band tenants of about three dozen properties on the Semiahmoo reserve have been told, as the First Nation upgrades its water system.

For those people, it’s a lot of money to come up with in a month. Notices went out on April 2.

But Semiahmoo Chief Harley Chappel says the band has been clear with non-band residents that this would come at some point.

“In August of 2017, I sent out a notice to all non-band member tenants that we were working towards bringing infrastructure from Surrey … We understood at that time, through our funding source, that the funding and the budget was only for First Nations on reserve. As soon as I heard that, we were sending that information out to the non-band member tenants,” Chappel said.

He says those tenants were told in September, 2018 to expect to pay somewhere between $30,000 and $70,000 for these upgrades.

“We sat and had an open meeting with all of the non-band member tenants, saying ‘We don’t know what this number’s going to look like. Until we’re actually approved for the budget and until we can actually award that contract, we don’t know what those numbers look like.”

He says the infrastructure funding approval wasn’t received until January. “Come February, we awarded our contract, started talking with the contractor about what that fee would be to add non-band member residents. I got those numbers mid-March, and I shared those with non-band member residents in early April.”

Chappel says the band has been under an on-and-off boil water advisory since 1996 — and has been on a permanent one since 2005 — and with federal money on the table to do this, the band has to make these necessary upgrades.

“Over the past few years, we’ve been working towards bringing infrastructure into our community, we’ve been trying our best to keep the community — band members and non-band members alike — informed on what the process will be. The connection fee that they have is the cost that they need to incur to hook up to both sanitary services as well as water. So, the direction that we’ve been given is all residents of the reserve must be hooked up to municipal connections to be able to move us towards lifting us from the long-standing boil water advisory on Semiahmoo First Nation.”

Chappel says the band doesn’t have the ability to incur those costs for non-band members.

NEWS 1130 has contacted Indigenous Services Canada. It says it is “aware that some people residents on reserve are concerned about being negatively impacted by the construction of water and sewer infrastructure on the Semiahmoo First Nation.”

“The Department encourages residents on reserve to direct their questions about the new water and waste water system to the First Nation leadership,” it added.

Asked if he’s sympathetic to the non-band residents needing to come up with $50,000 in just a month, Chappel said, “We can’t be. We have our contractor that’s wanting to start in one of the residential areas. He’s asking us, ‘Who’s hooking up?’ I can’t answer those questions.”

Non-band members who received the notices have been told they have until 4 p.m. on April 30 to pay.

He acknowledges that the process has been “extremely fast.”

“We shared that with tenants last year, that this is going to happen fast … In September, one of the non-band member tenants said, ‘I guess we either need to start saving or preparing for that or start looking for alternative places to live.’ The unfortunate truth is they knew at that time that that was the reality of what was coming down the line.”

Chappel doesn’t expect any flexibility will be offered to non-band members to pay up. “We have a very tight timeline … What we need right now is who’s going to entertain the idea of working down this path? My feeling is that a vast majority will not be willing or able or capable of incurring those costs.”

He expects many affected tenants will have to leave, but even those who stay will not only have to pay the $50,000, but will also be looking at a much more expensive lease based on the upgrades.

“They’re paying an unbelievably minimum right now. Having a service coming into our community and even having that discussion of leases on First Nation is going to be substantially more, just based on land value. Based on the area we’re in.”

“When a non-band member tenant is wanting to move back into a lease — because the leases were cancelled, there’s no grandfathering of those old leases. They’re gone. They’re non-existent. So, they’ll have to enter into a new lease. A new lease for service land in the South Surrey/White Rock area is substantial. But once we even get to the connection of these houses, we need to do the appraisal, we need to do an environmental, we need to survey the property. Then, it’s based on fair market value of that property, with is substantially more than they’re paying right now,” he said.

Chappel thinks many of the affected tenants didn’t think this was going to happen. “We’ve been trying to share with them, ‘No, this is what we’re doing. This is the path we have to go to.'”

Chappel feels a focus on non-band residents being given this bill takes away from the good news of receiving funding and moving off a boil water advisory.

“Being able to bring a lifetime of work as servicing into our community is being foreshadowed by this situation,” he said. “This is a positive, good place for Semiahmoo to be moving in. We’re just looking to raise the standard of living in our community — for everybody, especially band members.”