小蓝视频
The City of Weyburn is off to a strong start to the year for construction activity and lot sales, if the first month is any indication of things to come.
City council was in the dark initially - and literally. With the council normally broadcast live, and with one councillor, Bill Rudachyk, taking part in the meeting via Skype from Phoenix, Ariz., the power went out to City Hall and a large part of the city sometime after 5 p.m. when a power pole was struck near the new Boston Pizza building, leaving council with only emergency lights to see by.
After waiting about 10 minutes to see if the power would return, the meeting got underway in the dim light, and the lights came back on at roughly 6:20 p.m., enabling Coun. Rudachyk to rejoin the meeting.
In the city's Building Department report for January, council was told the city sold 11 lots, compared for four at this time a year ago, and six sold for all of 2009.
Five of the lots were sold on Barber Crescent, two on Brown Crescent and six on Johnston Drive; the two lots on Brown Crescent were returned by quit claim. As of the end of January, there were officially no lots available for residential housing in the city; however, city manager Bob Smith said early sales of the 77 new lots to be developed this year may begin soon, once a price has been set, and the sale will be conducted by lottery.
In regard to building permits, the city issued six building permits in January worth a total of $1.28 million, all of them for residential development. Four of the permits were for new homes worth a total of $1.26 million. One year ago, in a near-record year, the city only issued two permits in January worth $32,000, both for residential additions or alterations.
The city's strong showing in 2010 didn't go unnoticed at the provincial level, as Statistics Canada noted province-wide building permits were the second-highest ever, totalling $2.1 billion, just shy of the record $2.2 billion set in 2008.
Of all Saskatchewan cities, Weyburn had the second-highest percentage increase in overall building permits in 2010 compared with 2009, behind only Melville, and ahead of Prince Albert and Melfort.
In a bid to encourage more growth in affordable housing, the council approved an application to rezone 11 lots on First Avenue SW from Major Arterial Commercial to R5, which is residential mobile home.
The city provided notice for the rezoning, and received one letter in opposition, from developer Gasha Gill, who asked the commercial rating remain on these lots.
"I am in favour of affordable housing and modular homes anywhere in the city, but on First Avenue the seven lots which are 50 feet wide and 170 to 200 feet long, each lot is the size of two lots. To maximize the use of this property it would be better to use it as multi-units, hotel, motel or commercial use," he said, noting with all the motel rooms, restaurants and heavy-duty trucks in the area, it would be dangerous to allow mobile homes to locate there with children near all of this traffic.
Of the 11 lots 小蓝视频 rezoned, seven are vacant, and four have dwellings. Gill is the owner of three of the four existing dwellings in that area.
Mayor Debra Button noted she grew up in that area, and said these lots have been vacant since before then.
"I think we have the opportunity to sell those lots and move forward with development," she said, noting she would vote in favour of the rezoning.
The area is located immediately north of the existing mobile home park, and south of the Circle Six motel.
Minard's Leisure World has offered to buy the seven city-owned lots and develop them with mobile homes and sell them to the public.
Council agreed with the mayor, and they voted unanimously to pass the rezoning bylaw to allow the sale and development to go ahead.
The Communities in Bloom committee discussed some ideas to further beautify the city, as suggested by last year's judges, including the idea of lighting up the wheat sculptures along the boardwalk.
Once this was brought up at the committee, parks and works superintendent Claude Morin noted it would be very costly to get power run out to all of the sculptures and along the boardwalk.
At council, Coun. Rob Stephanson suggested looking into solar power as an alternative to running power to light up the wheat sculptures.
He acknowledge that solar lighting can be expensive as well, but suggested the city look into possible grant funding to help make it possible.
Coun. Nancy Styles said this suggestion will go to the city's parks board, and suggested wiring may be possible for two of the sculptures.
Other suggestions by the judges were to put flowers and shrubs around the "Welcome to Weyburn" signs, and they indicated they do not like to see billboards in ditches. Morin noted it would be difficult to put flowers and shrubs around the welcome signs as most of the signs are located on private land.
One suggestion is to promote their information workshops better and get more people to attend, in particular on composting, as well as workshops on topics like flower choice and container gardens.
Meanwhile, the city parks board held a brainstorming session for future grant opportunities, and passed on information on three grant programs the city could look into applying for.
One is the Community Vitality program, with approved projects getting 50 per cent of eligible costs to a maximum of $50,000; it was thought paving of park pathways may fit under this program.
Secondly is the FCC AgriSpirit Fund, with funding ranging from $5,000 to $25,000; the board felt benches for the city's parks would be a good fit for this grant. Finally is the Enabling Accessibility Funding, which provides funding of $75,000. This grant is targeted at projects that improves accessibility to buildings. The board felt pathway accessibility to buildings may fit under this program.
Meantime, Weyburn In-Motion indicated their application to Sask In-Motion was successful, with their application for a grant for brochures and trail maps approved for the full $5,000.
