April 3 marked a significant day for residents of St. Adolphe, as well as the developers of the community’s newest neighbourhood, Tourond Creek. The developer, St. Adolphe Land Company (SALCO), made a two-part request to Ritchot council: to amend their existing residential zoning to include multifamily options, and to rezone a section of land designated commercial to multifamily residential.
The public hearing, held at Pioneer Hall in St. Adolphe, brought out well over a hundred residents interested in voicing their concerns or following the proceedings. After lengthy addresses from SALCO representatives and concerned residents, council voted to defeat the proposal.
“The public hearing was well attended,” says Mayor Chris Ewen. “We heard great points from both sides of the table and appreciated the input. As council, we have to consider the feedback from our residents, the validity of the proposals, and the sustainability of those proposals.”
“The developer is very disappointed in the outcome of council’s decision,” says Brandon Powell of Lombard North Group, consultant to SALCO. “We understand that commercial space is viewed passionately by many people in the community. It is also important to acknowledge that not all residents were opposed to the application. We certainly have heard some positive feedback from residents. Even when faced with those in opposition, I truly believe the developer and the community want the same thing—a complete community to live, work, and play.”
Objecting residents, on the other hand, were not as convinced that the developers had the community’s best interests at heart. A petition with 470 signatures of objection was presented to council.
“In my mind, the main points of concern would be the loss of this commercial space,” says St. Adolphe resident Keith Pearce. “A person has to understand that [we are] in a unique situation. Being enclosed in a dike, St. Adolphe has an extremely limited ability to rezone other property to commercial should it be needed in the future. Losing this space would have been a very risky move. This could have put any ability to develop future commercial businesses in unnecessary jeopardy.”
Tourond Creek consists of 300 acres of developable land proposed to be built in six phases. It’s the single largest capital investment in the RM’s history and, when fully developed and sold, is expected to quadruple St. Adolphe’s current population.
While phase one is well underway with new home builds, a section of commercially zoned property at the most westerly corner was under review. This parcel, flanked on one side by Highway 200 and on another by the development’s main entry, Tourond Creek Drive, provided the ideal location for retail space: the lots are highly visible from the highway and are easy to access without increasing traffic through residential zones.
This area had been strategically targeted for multifamily units as well. The higher levels of traffic they create wouldn’t have had to pass through the single-family residential areas nearby where children are often at play.
The concern, for SALCO, was the inability to justify the amount of commercial space originally set aside based on the lack of demand for retail space in this community.
“Very careful due diligence and assessment suggests that community expectations for business attraction in St. Adolphe are not realistic to the degree that some believe,” Powell says. “What those in opposition to our application must understand is that you do not have to convince the developer to build commercial businesses in your community, you have to convince the businesses themselves to establish operations in St. Adolphe. Although we believe some commercial interest will eventually be attracted to St. Adolphe as the local population continues to grow, it will be limited.”
Powell and the developer are convinced that losing five out of 11.5 acres of commercially designated space wouldn’t have been the reason for a business choosing not to set down roots here, and SALCO went to great length to try proving this point to both council and the community.
Over the past two years, Powell says, one of Manitoba’s leading commercial realtors, Capital Commercial Real Estate, has been marketing Tourond Creek’s commercial lands. According to the firm, they’ve been unable to garner interest. Powell indicates that the two primary barriers to commercial investors are St. Adolphe’s close proximity to Winnipeg and the community’s limited population, which is further inhibited from dramatic growth due to the ring dike and the Red River.
SALCO says that, following an extensive consultation process with council in the past year, they commissioned the help of leading land economists Urbanics Consultants Ltd to assess St. Adolphe’s future commercial land requirements. Their study took into consideration the eventual full build-out of Tourond Creek, effectively bringing the community’s population to over 5,000 residents, as well as the larger trade area that St. Adolphe businesses might potentially draw from.
The firm concluded that proximity to the city will continue to be a hindrance even as the community reaches housing capacity. Further to that, the majority of residents who live in the community will continue to commute to Winnipeg for work and do their business there. Based on well-established methods of extracting data, they determined that three acres of land is all the community will require, even at capacity.
From this, SALCO argues that 6.5 acres of dedicated commercial space in the development would surpass even the experts’ expectations for required commercial space. Urbanics’s recommendation to their clients was to build on the population base first, which would help attract more business. Providing a wider range of housing options, like multifamily rental units, would do that.
This leads to the second point of contention for those who objected to the proposal.
“St. Adolphe residents [do] not feel that high-density rental apartments fit with the character of the town and what they want for the future,” Pearce says. “We should be very careful what is allowed to be built. Rows of three-storey rental apartments are the wrong type of structure in this town. [We are] composed primarily of single-family residences, big lots, dogs, cats, room for kids to play. This is what people moved here for.”
According to growth analysts, however, diversity in housing is exactly what towns need to thrive. Providing options for every level of income and age bracket helps to prevent the exodus of young adults and seniors.
Even with council’s denial of their rezoning requests, Tourond Creek’s current zoning still allows for multifamily housing options in one other location on the development—a parcel the developer is holding for the Seine River School Division, should a new school be proposed in the near future.
“Should the school division proceed with the purchase of land for a new school and the two commercial sites remain commercial, there are no other options for multifamily areas in Tourond Creek,” adds Powell. “So, without all or some of these sites zoned as multifamily, Tourond Creek will become a predominantly single-family development and no longer in alignment with the goal of creating a complete community.”
He says this will, in turn, impair both residential and commercial growth.
Pearce and other residents see it differently. Long-term residents of St. Adolphe were around to witness a time when the community, then much smaller, had more amenities than it does today. The floods of 1996 and 1997 saw the loss of the community parks along the river that once provided places for young families to swim in the outdoor pool and for ball teams to host tournaments. St. Adolphe was once a destination, Pearce says, and only in the past few years has the town begun to recover from that.
“La Salle went through this same process but was able to bounce back after gas and water were brought to that town,” he says. “This is happening in St. Adolphe and we can look to La Salle to see what the result is likely to be. This process of revitalization is now occurring [here]. Younger families are buying here, sons and daughters are moving back, and these young families are having children. The urban experts did not address any of this.”
Mayor Ewen says that it’s too soon for him to comment on the community’s decline of services over the years. “I truly do not have the data to support if there is decline in St. Adolphe but have started investigating it.”
Lesley Gaudry is the community economic development officer (CEDO) for the RM of Ritchot. She has been hard at work developing strategic plans to address business development in the region using the many tools available to her as a CEDO.
“The report that was presented by [Urbanics] is one perspective,” Gaudry says. “The residents presented their perspectives. Statistics and data are important, and there is context [there], but there is also qualitative data such as narratives [and] testimonials. We heard both of these at the public hearing. It is important to make decisions based on all information received. It is [also] important, when undertaking business development, retention and expansion, and foreign direct investment initiatives, that there [are] properly zoned land parcels available to service expanding or new businesses. There are many strategies in the toolkit.”
