City-rejected Lemay Forest assisted-living complex provides needed housing, allows aging in place, developer’s lawyer argues

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This article was published 13/02/2025 (248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A hotly debated proposal to create a massive assisted-living facility in Lemay Forest would deliver much-needed homes right where the city hopes to attract them, according to the developer’s lawyer.

“This land is in the (housing) intensification target area identified by city council. It’s infill housing that doesn’t displace other residents,” lawyer Kevin Toyne told the Manitoba Municipal Board Thursday.

Tochal Development Group is proposing a 5,000-bed, 2,500-unit facility, which it says would help address a housing shortage and let seniors “age in place.”

City council rejected the proposed development in September, declaring it too large for the site. The developer appealed the decision to the Municipal Board, leading to this week’s hearings.

Prior to council’s rejection, city planners had called for the proposal to shrink to 791 units, suggesting any more than 800 would require further traffic reviews.

Toyne said that smaller project would still roughly double the number of people in St. Norbert, based on assumptions two tenants would live in each unit and staff would be hired to support them.

Last year, the city estimated the neighbourhood was home to about 1,735 people.

The 791-unit recommendation from city officials indicates it is possible to service the site to support significant growth, Toyne said.

“The fact that this is in St. Norbert isn’t a reason to say no. The fact that it’s within the intensification target area is a reason to say yes,” he said.

For more than a year, debate over the future of the south Winnipeg urban forest has intensified, triggering unsuccessful offers to buy the land and preserve its trees, as well as several legal challenges.

Multiple residents told the Municipal Board that clearing the forest for development would eliminate an important animal habitat, cut off access to sweat lodges used for Indigenous ceremonies and risk disturbing graves at a cemetery that was part of the former l’Asile Ritchot orphanage.

Two presenters spoke in favour of the project, arguing there’s a need for the assisted-living units.

Toyne suggested many Winnipeggers don’t oppose the project, which he said included extensive public consultation.

“The very small number of voices in opposition is something that you can and should take into account,” he said.

Toyne told the board that rejecting the development would not protect the forest, since the private property owner intends to remove the trees, regardless of the appeal’s outcome.

“The trees are coming down,” he said.

By contrast, the city’s lawyer argued council was right to reject the project, pointing to a lack of detail on how the site would connect to key city services.

“The evidence before this board and, indeed, before council at the material time, simply doesn’t exist to say that this development application is anything but premature. It’s conceptual in nature…. In the city’s view, the decision made (to reject it) was correct and reasonable, based on the limited information that was available,” said Kalyn Bomback, who noted several members of the public also shared concerns about the former cemetery.

“There were comments made that we are still trying to find the bodies of the children and women who might be buried on the land. The reality is that, on that basis, no developer could know exactly where building can take place on the land at this point in time.”

Tochal has promised not to build on any area with suspected unmarked graves or within a 100-metre buffer zone around them.

Bomback estimated the proposal would potentially quadruple the neighbourhood’s population, when staff are factored in.

“The proposal, as presented, was incompatible with the surrounding context in terms of built form, scale, density and limited access to the existing street networks,” she said, urging the board to reject the appeal and award the city hearing costs.

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Toyne stressed the developer is conducting extensive reviews to pinpoint exactly where any unmarked graves may be, while also consulting Indigenous groups about how to address the issue.

“Construction is not going to happen on top of unmarked graves. A significantly larger buffer zone than anyone else has suggested has been implemented,” he said.

The Municipal Board is required to make a decision on the project by April 14. Its order will be final and binding on the city.

joyanne.pursaga@freepress.mb.ca

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Joyanne Pursaga
Reporter

Joyanne is city hall reporter for the Winnipeg Free Press. A reporter since 2004, she began covering politics exclusively in 2012, writing on city hall and the Manitoba Legislature for the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in early 2020. Read more about Joyanne.

Every piece of reporting Joyanne produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.