Hopefully by now the district's ability to communicate with our community has successfully made most of you aware that we are the recipients of a $4,000,000 grant to aid us in the work we are doing at the Squamish landfill. This is a significant project for our community and involves capturing and treating leachate, keeping wildlife from the site, capturing gasses, greatly enhancing our waste diversion, sorting, recycling and green waste composting on site. There are a number of reasons we received these funds. This project is a reflection of our community organizations and the district being responsible and concerned about both waste reduction and protecting our environment. It also came as a result of our good relationships with our MLA and MP and a great deal of credit should go to our staff, both Mr. MacLeod, the manager of this project, and Mr. McRae's expertise in grant writing.
Projects like this don't always get the attention they deserve. Being the recipient of a grant like this relieves a considerable burden on the taxpayers. I have spoken before about the main responsibility of the district being to provide the basic infrastructure to ensure Squamish continues to be a healthy, liveable community. If we are doing our job well at the district, the people of Squamish may well be unaware. On the other hand, if we are not addressing these basics, it could very well be catastrophic for many.
These incredibly expensive projects will be a substantial strain on our financial resources even if we are successful in obtaining future grants. This district does not have sufficient reserves but does have significant borrowing capacity. Borrowing is not my preferred method of financing these projects. I would rather we were in a position to use a combination of grants, reserves and debt. Our new Long Term Strategic Financial Plan addresses these shortcomings over time; however, we have to take action on a number of these projects immediately.
The last few years, our population increasing from approximately 15,000 to about 17,500 does not contribute as much as one might think. The taxation received from residential property tax is basically consumed servicing those new residents. As much as we need new commercial and light industry to generate jobs, we also need it to generate the taxes required to rebuild our infrastructure. Helping our existing business to prosper and grow will not only generate additional employment, but will bring new business to town to service them. Our economic development strategy is addressing the hurdles our existing business face as well as co-ordinating Squamish's economic development organizations to work collaboratively to promote Squamish. The Core Service Review is correcting the internal shortcomings in our building and planning department.
I myself have been very busy since the election, meeting with major developers and investors that are very interested and excited to participate in what they see as our incredibly promising future. In spite of the global economic picture which would suggest a very cautious approach, these contacts believe that now is the time to invest. Of course, we know that not all that glitters is gold, but our future does look bright.
