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Urban reserve deal at hand
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WINNIPEG - After four years of talk and a brief internal squabble, Winnipeg’s first urban reserve could be a done deal before the end of the year.
Long Plain First Nation Chief David Meeches said the last bit of paperwork, a service agreement with the city, could be signed and sealed this month. That would clear the way for Ottawa to formally turn a parcel of land near Polo Park into a reserve, allowing the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs to build a $100-million legislature and government administration building there.
"We’re very close to concluding our negotiations," Meeches said Monday.
The deal with the city will lay out how Long Plain and the AMC will comply with city bylaws and pay fees in lieu of property taxes for city services like fire, police and snow clearing. A city spokesman confirmed a deal is in the works, but not yet concluded.
Once the deal is done, Meeches said the plan is to hold an open house explaining the $100-million project and the intricacies of its status to Winnipeggers, many of whom are mistrustful of an urban reserve.
Although other cities in Western Canada, most notably Saskatoon, have had urban reserves for years, Winnipeg has been a laggard.
First Nations have pitched several urban reserve proposals, including a downtown office tower or an aboriginal recreation and education centre in the old St. Boniface Industrial Park. The AMC’s plan for a 10-storery government building on Madison Street south of Silver Avenue has been the leading proposal and looked like it had finally cleared all the bureaucratic hurdles last spring.
But, just days before the city and the AMC were set to announce the details of the municipal service deal, Meeches and Long Plain backed out. Meeches had just won a bitter election for chief and said he wanted time to scrutinize the service agreement and the partnership with the AMC.
Those differences appear to have been ironed out.
"We just want to make sure we’ve dotted all the i’s and crossed all the t’s and we’re on a level playing field," Meeches said of the deal with the city.
He balks at the term "urban reserve", preferring the less loaded "aboriginal economic development zone."
Long Plain is one of the many bands owed land from outstanding treaty obligations that hope to transplant the tax benefits of rural reserves into cities, where First Nations businesses and services can flourish. Long Plain plans to open a gas station on the Polo Park property.
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