It’s been two years since Niverville’s town council officially put forward a request to the province for the annexation of nearly 2,600 acres of land to the community’s east. On November 5, Mayor Myron Dyck announced that the request, as it was proposed, has been declined.
The annexation proposal was a collaborative effort between the Town of Niverville and RM of Hanover under whose jurisdiction the land currently lies.
If approved, the annexation would have more than doubled Niverville’s current footprint. Roughly 50 parcels of land bordering both sides of Highway 311 east from Niverville to Highway 59 were listed on the application.
Based on Niverville’s future growth predictions, this additional land would have carried Niverville well into the future.
“The Municipal Board has not recommended to the Minister of Municipal and Northern Relations that the annexation be approved… as it assumes a 50-year growth timespan,” says Mayor Dyck.
Instead the Municipal Board is recommending that the Town of Niverville and RM of Hanover go back to the drawing board and create a new proposal that reflects land needs based on a 25-year growth period.
Despite the bad news, Dyck says that council is buoyed by the fact that the Municipal Board does seem to recognize Niverville’s need to expand its boundaries if growth is to continue.
“Over the coming months, the town will be working with its consultants and the RM of Hanover on deciding how best to proceed with the revised proposal,” Dyck says. “These efforts would include addressing the Municipal Board’s concerns and identifying shared interests between the municipalities.”
Dyck says his council wasn’t overly surprised by the province’s decision. It’s a fairly common occurrence, he says, for the province to require amendments to annexation requests.
Council has already requested a meeting with Minister Ian Bushie in the hopes of finding out what it would take to create a proposal that is more amenable to the province.
In preparation, council will defer to the sustainable growth strategy report that was prepared for them in 2022 by Urban Systems, community planning consultants. That report projected that, based on Niverville’s rate of growth, the community would run out of developable residential land in 15 to 20 years.
“Although 20 years may seem like a long time, it is important to plan proactively for the future to ensure sustainable growth for Niverville,” stated a 2022 council press release. “Transferring lands now will ensure that [the parcels] do not become fragmented or developed with incompatible uses, and more difficult to transfer or develop in the future.”
