Fort Saskatchewan city council is giving residents some relief.

For the next 90 days, residents will have an extension to pay utility bills for water, sewer and waste collection without incurring any of the associated fees or penalties. This also applies to local businesses.

Council unanimously agreed to pass the motion during a special meeting on Monday (Mar.23).

The bills will still be mailed out to residents, who have the option of taking advantage of the extension or keeping up with their payments as normal.

"This city as an organization only has a certain amount of financial capacity to start to take on relief measures. Anyone in the community that has the ability is strongly encouraged to continue to pay their bills on time to ensure that the limited capacity that the city has can go to those who need it," said city manager Troy Fleming.

Residents taking advantage of this relief are asked to contact the city. Tenants should speak to their landlords about their decision regarding delaying the payments.

The city will reconsider a longer-period solution in the future depending on how the COVID-19 situation develops.

"I believe that we probably have a number of households in the community already facing some financial challenges so any little bit that we can do to help, defer some of that, I know would be much appreciated," explained councillor Ed Sperling.

The province also announced (on Wednesday) residential customers can defer their electricity and natural gas payments for the same amount of time.

As they are following the lead of the Alberta government, the city is waiting to see if they put out any recommendations regarding other tax relief initiatives, like for property taxes, before looking to implement them in Fort Saskatchewan.