Residents of Lytton got an idea Thursday of what the next steps of the rebuild process are expected to look like.
Those attending a community meeting held virtually on Thursday night were told BC Hydro will soon begin working to reconstruct its above-ground electrical system in the Village of Lytton, estimating the process could take up to nine months to complete.
A municipal official also laid out the next steps for the community in the rebuilding process.
BC Hydro spokesperson Mary-Anne Coules said the Crown corporation's electrical infrastructure in the village was completely destroyed when wildfire swept through the area on June 30.
“From the beginning, we've been working with the Village of Lytton, Lytton First Nation and other stakeholders and, of course, this is a complicated process,” Coules said, adding there’s a lot of work ahead.
“This morning we did receive direction from the village to go ahead with rebuilding the electrical system above ground as it was before the fire. And we expect at this point that the restoration will take approximately six to nine months to complete."
She said the restoration will be done at no cost to the village, and residential customers will be connected at no charge if the connection fee isn’t covered by insurance.
Commercial customers will need to pay a reconnection fee, according to Coules.
“Once our infrastructure is rebuilt along the streets, customers can begin the process to reconnect, hiring a certified contractor and seeking appropriate approvals from the Village of Lytton and Technical Safety BC,” Coules said.
BC Hydro’s Derek Curll, responsible for leading the Lytton system rebuild, said the team is “looking forward to mobilizing and starting to design and getting the power on the streets.”
During Thursday’s meeting, Village of Lytton project manager James Heigh walked residents through the next stages of the recovery process.
Heigh said right now, the village is focusing on the short-term but wants to start doing more long-range community planning.
The Village of Lytton announced last week it awarded contracts for municipal debris removal, focusing first on five municipal properties — the fire hall, the public works building, the visitor information centre, the museum and the swimming pool.
“The idea is debris removal, [then] critical infrastructure — including water systems, Hydro, Telus — coming into the community, new bylaws in place, the village operational and functioning out of a village office, and then looking at the next phase, would be the rebuild phase,” Heigh said.
“As part of the rebuild phase — and, again, this would be direction of the residents and mayor and council — would be that community planning level of what do we do with the vacant municipal properties? What do we build back? Are there requirements for different different designations in the community from a land-based perspective than were there before?”
The next step, he said, would be to do community-level planning engagement with residents and then finding experts to help the village develop those plans.
He said he would like to see community planning occur in 2022.
Leslie Groulx, Village of Lytton interim acting CAO, said the village is working on a request for proposals to update the official community plan.
“The proposal will go out, that will take a bit of time, but that is in the immediate plan,” Groulx said.
