Council Debrief: Large-Scale Road Project Set to Begin

This week, Council addressed some new policies regarding physician recruitment and the use of town property, and made some decisions regarding a few large-scale building projects.

A quiet January is good news for the public works department, as it means they haven’t had any weather-related breaks or breakdowns to deal with. Right now, Manager of Operations Denis Saquet says he’s looking into a tree asset management program offered through Manitoba Forestry and widening out the cleared sections of some back lanes for easier access for garbage collection.

The big project Saquet is tackling, however, is the excavation for the Hamilton Street extension. Three tenders were received for the work, which involves removing about 25,000 square meters of soil. The work will begin as soon as possible to take advantage of the frozen roads, which helps when running upwards of 1200 full truckloads of soil on them. Because the soil is frozen to a much lesser depth in the undeveloped area to be removed, the winter weather won’t pose a problem for the excavators. The soil will be classified and stockpiled in various locations for future use.

CAO Colleen Synchyshyn brings forward a notification about the need to upgrade and do a fire inspection on Shared Health buildings due to new legislation from the Manitoba Fire Code. As well, as per our bylaws, the town will be adding some property clean-up costs to the tax roll for residents who did not otherwise follow the town’s bylaw enforcement measures.

Council addresses a variation application proposed during a public hearing earlier in the evening. Because several community members brought forward concerns about the variation, which proposes to reduce the number of available parking spaces significantly, and because the town wants to hold to the standard laid out in their bylaws and precedents, the motion to approve the variation was unanimously defeated. This does not mean that a development will not go forward in that area, just that the application needs to be revised and resubmitted to be compliant with the current regulations.

They then approve two applications to the economic incentive program, which allows a 3-year phase-in on the municipal portion of property taxes. Both applicants far exceed the $750,000 in assessed value required by the program. Howden Housing is responsible for four new two-story apartment buildings with a total of 32 units, and Valley’s Edge is a new 36-unit building on Mountain Avenue.

The physician recruitment committee has asked for a commitment of $2 per capita, not just from the Town of Neepawa but from the surrounding municipalities as well, to assist in their recruitment efforts. For Neepawa, these have already been very successful, attracting several doctors to the area and, for the most part, keeping them here as well. Council approves that request, as well as a new policy that will outline fees for services for the use of town-owned parks and streets for events. This policy is intended to officially document what is already in practice for requests to hold events on town property.

Council also discussed Dutch Elm management, staff retirements, and RCMP recruitment.