Asset Management and Financial Planning Initiatives

The City of Cambridge provides essential services for our community that enables its strategic vision of “a place for people to prosper.” The sustainable delivery of these services is dependent on a wide range of assets that must be managed effectively and well maintained.

The management of these assets (which include everything from our roads networks and water & sewer infrastructure to our buildings and arenas) is influenced by a range of factors and requires the City to coordinate its planning to balance expenditures, services, and risk across this diverse portfolio of assets – a process referred to as asset management.

The City of Cambridge has proactively adopted formal asset management since 2006 for core infrastructure (water, stormwater, wastewater, roads and bridges). The City published its first Asset Management Plan for core infrastructure in 2013.

Based on early successes and maturing asset management processes for core infrastructure, Council approved a corporate Asset Management Mandate in 2015 to expand asset management processes to include other services (parks, recreation & culture, emergency, resource management).

The City adopted Strategic Asset Management Policy in April 2019, which was updated in 2024. 

Asset Management Plan

The current 2024 Interim Asset Management Plan, prepared in consultation with stakeholders, was officially endorsed by City Council on July 9, 2024. This 2024 Asset Management Plan is an update of and supplementary document to the 2019 Asset Management Plan.  

The Asset Management Plan provides an overview of the state of infrastructure owned, operated and maintained by the City to best serve residents and businesses.

The goals of the City are to maintain and improve assets in order to provide reliable and efficient services, build new infrastructure for service improvements, and support future growth.

A priority is to provide innovative leadership in the management of City assets to help plan, fund and maintain city assets in a sustainable way. Through the adoption of forward-thinking, proactive programs, the City is better able to monitor the condition of assets and to plan for future generations.

Overview

• The assets are at varying stages in their lifespans.

Pie Chart of asset areas breakdown

• The 2019 Canadian Infrastructure Report Card identifies that 58 per cent of municipal assets across the country are rated as being in very good condition or good condition. Currently, Cambridge exceeds this national average with 70 per cent of its infrastructure in good or very good condition.

• A total capital investment of $872 million is required over the next ten years to maintain existing assets in a good state of repair and to provide municipal financing for new infrastructure to support growth.

• The 2024-2033 Capital Investment Plan provides for infrastructure investment of $726 million through various City funding sources  resulting in a funding gap of $146 million between our assessed infrastructure investment needs and current capital investment funding for the next 10 years.

• The resulting funding gap is in key areas such as transportation, stormwater management, recreation & culture and resource management.

• There is no funding gap for the City’s drinking water and wastewater infrastructure needs for the 10 year period to 2033. The infrastructure needs are fully funded through the long-range financial plan to ensure continued delivery of safe drinking water to the community.

• The City continues to work with all levels of government to identify funding opportunities and to explore alternative revenue streams such as stormwater management utility, implementation of a special infrastructure levy, public-private partnerships, debt financing and sponsorship strategies to address this infrastructure gap.

• To minimize service interruptions, the City has adopted risk based integrated capital planning and prioritization of capital projects based on multiple criteria.