Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Group home agency mulls legal options
Springfield feared 'bogeymen': director
DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image
New Directions intended to convert this Springfield property into a group home for two men.
Group home operator New Directions is considering a legal challenge in its bid to open a new facility in the RM of Springfield.
Jennifer Frain, New Directions executive director, said the agency is weighing its options following Monday night's decision by the Springfield council to reject their rezoning application.
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"We will take our time to assess the outcome of (Monday) night and to discuss with the people involved at New Directions what we'll do going forward," Frain said.
New Directions wants to set up a group home for two developmentally and physically challenged men in a 1,580-square-foot bungalow on a six-acre property it purchased on Aspen Glen Road, near the Elmhurst Golf and Country Club.
The property is zoned rural residential and New Directions applied to rezone it to institutional.
Area residents opposed the rezoning and a petition bearing more than 200 names was delivered to the RM at Monday's meeting. Councillors unanimously rejected the rezoning application.
Frain said New Directions filed the rezoning application because it was requested by the RM, but she added the agency has legal advice that rezoning isn't necessary because the group home meets the RM bylaw's definition of family.
New Direction' lawyer said Springfield should have approved the project, Frain said.
"Our lawyer said that if there is an ambiguity in the bylaw, it's the requirement of the municipality to interpret the ambiguity in light of, and while holding in mind, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Human Rights Code."
Frain said she wouldn't challenge the RM without first consulting the province, which funds the home. The province may not give the facility an occupancy permit unless the municipality approves, she added.
Springfield Coun. Karen Lalonde said she doesn't understand why New Directions was surprised by the negative reaction.
"Once you grant that licence there are many other things that can go into that home, other problems that can go into that home, sexual behaviour problems being one of them, it's right on their website," Lalonde said.
"Rather than open the barn door and not be able to close it again, (the residents) felt they didn't want to grant it in the first place."
Frain said rumours that New Directions would place men who were sexual offenders into the home were untrue, adding she's convinced the residents were simply afraid of people with developmental disabilities.
"They're portraying them as bogeymen and thinking of all the bad things that bogeymen can do," Frain said. "So sexual issues and worries about safety of children would be right up there in terms of peoples' fears and that got activated here without any evidence..."
New Directions board member Hogan Mullaly, whose brother is autistic and lives in a group home, said he could not believe the reaction of residents. "I honestly was taken back by the fear of the residents that we were bringing something dangerous into the neighbourhood."
Developmentally disabled adults are already living in Springfield, he added.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 11, 2010 A6
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