Cap on Bridgwater Trails building permits lifted

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This article was published 19/01/2018 (3036 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A cap on residential building permits for Bridgwater Trails is set to be lifted.

On Jan. 15 at Riel community committee, South Winnipeg-St. Norbert city councillor Janice Lukes agreed with the public service’s recommendation to amend the development agreement between Manitoba Housing and the City of Winnipeg that limited the number of permits issued in the neighbourhood until a school is built.

“Both the city and province are responsible for ensuring these communities that are built follow Our Winnipeg and the policies to build complete communities. For a variety of reasons the City and the province finds they are playing catch up on developing these communities,” Lukes said.

“The province has made it very clear to all parties involved that they must have the building cap removed to move forward.”

The issue first came to light in July 2017, when Manitoba Housing — the developer of the Bridgwater neighbourhoods — requested an amendment to the development agreement for Bridgwater Trails, removing the condition that the number of building permits issued would not exceed 750 single-family permits and 300 multi-family permits until an “early-years to Grade 8” school is constructed on one of the school sites within Bridgwater Forest, Bridgwater Lakes or Bridgwater Centre.

The matter was laid over to October and again to this month.

Lukes said she has been working with the province and Pembina Trails School Division to come to a solution and get more clarity on when a school may be built in the area.

She said she is optimistic the results of a KPMG study into the feasibility of building a high school through a private-public-partnership “will reflect favourably” on southwest Winnipeg and believes it’s in the community’s best interest to lift the permit cap.

“This action is supporting the province’s request with the goal of doing what is right for the community and to ensure the ability is in place for the province to lay a strong educational foundation for the future,” Lukes told the committee. “I also want it on the record and known that if this trust being extended towards building a complete community is not upheld, that I will bring forward to this committee to reinstate the building cap in the very short term.”

Rob Swan of Huntington Homes told Riel community committee the number of single family home building permits issued in Bridgwater Trails is about 630, and they are about two months away from hitting 750.

While Swan said an additional 500 homes planned for the area would increase the demand on nearby schools, he argued those homes would generate about $3-million in taxes, with half going to the school tax.

He added that people looking to move into the community regularly ask about nearby school options.

“I think that this whole situation with regards to the school, expediting it is critically important,” Swan said.
“Certainly funding shouldn’t be one of those issues, because funding would be there as the additional homes get added,” he said.

“The people who need to help make those decisions are the people who are pulling the purse strings (as to) whether a school gets built or not.”

Riel community committee voted unanimously to lift the cap and the decision will move on to the property and development, heritage and downtown development committee.