When an issue comes up more than once in regard to a City of Weyburn policy, then council and administration should be giving serious consideration to doing something about that policy, such as tweaking it, updating it or adding whatever information might be missing from it.
For the second time this year, an issue involving the offsite development levy has arisen, and a relevant comment was made by the developer in this second instance to the effect that this policy is stifling development, not helping it, which should be the primary goal for the City.
This most recent instance involved a proposed development for Hartney Avenue, where Dan Cugnet of Kenjo Holdings is wanting to build 18 new housing units.
The developer demolished and removed the former Pioneer Place cottages located in behind the Crocus Plains Villa, and he had to remediate the land in preparation for a new development.
For all of this work he’s already done there, and for the plans to build 18 dwelling units to replace the 32 units in 16 semi-dteached dwelling units, he was asking the city to waive the development levy.
The council voted against giving this waiver, offering instead to give credit for 16 of the 18 proposed new units so that the new development levy will total $13,536. It was pointed out that where Pioneer Place was on a private property before, this new development will have city-developed streets and curbs with water and sewer.
A telling comment was made by the first councillor to speak on this issue, when Coun. Jeff Richards said this was “a grey area” where this levy policy is concerned, and he wasn’t clear on exactly why the levy would apply to this development.
At an earlier council meeting, in relation to the new doggy day care to be established as a new business on Queen Street, a similar request for a waiver of the development levy was made, and was granted, with some councillors questioning why the policy was such that it didn’t really cover an instance like this development.
With two new developments coming up and both seeming to fall between the cracks of this development levy, it’s clear that more work is needed on this policy to deal fairly with developers. If this isn’t done, then the comment by Cugnet will be made again: “the city is penalizing and stifling growth with these development levies …” That is not the picture the City should be presenting.
