Niverville’s growing housing market has continued to boom, supplying the town with a considerable base of financial support—and in concert with this growth, the town projects to complete major capital projects in the near future.
Perhaps most visibly, the opening of the Niverville Community Resource and Recreation Centre this summer will present council with a new revenue stream.
Mayor Myron Dyck adds that the town has many new initiatives on the horizon. Despite some losses in the past year related to the pandemic, including financial setbacks related to them taking over the operations of the Open Health medical clinic, good things are on the way.
“We are looking at opening the CRRC this summer, and we will be hosting the Manitoba Winter Games in 2022, so those are exciting things we are able to do,” says Dyck. “We are looking forward to the spring, when we can do more outside, and we are gearing up already to provide programs in what safe ways that we can, such as summer camps. We are looking out for the community to find ways to safely get together. And if we can have groups of ten, we will.”
Mayor Dyck acknowledges that there’s no question the town could still use assistance from the provincial and federal governments when it comes to outstanding major capital projects. This is especially true of the regional wastewater treatment plant that was proposed in late 2019. The project has an estimated cost of $100 million, shared across multiple municipalities.
“Could we use $50,000 or $100,000 to help offset the costs of operations? Yes, absolutely,” says Dyck. “But if we look at what the priority is in the town right now, it’s the wastewater treatment facility. We are talking with the federal government and we are doing a regional team-up with other municipalities. It is vital that this needs to happen.”
The wastewater treatment facility goes beyond the scope of pandemic-related financial challenges, as does the water treatment plant which requires a new engine to increase drinking water supply, but the town hopes to increase awareness of how important both projects are for the town’s future.
“We need this for our town,” says Dyck. “We essentially need a new engine to make potable water. We need to be able to process more of it more quickly to meet demand, and that is based on growth. We also need to make our reservoir larger, which has to do with our duty to ensure capability for fire suppression.”