Niverville’s town council met on the evening of Tuesday, February 15 for a regularly scheduled meeting. There were multiple issues on the agenda, many of which brought out residents to voice their concerns and opinions.
Smitty’s Restaurant
Kaely Dyck made a presentation to council regarding the opening of a new Smitty’s location in Niverville.
Ms. Dyck says that this Smitty’s location will be a collaboration between the Dyck Family Smitty’s Group—comprised of Robert Dyck, Chris Dyck, and herself—and the Funk Group—comprised of Brian and Valerie Funk.
The Funk Group already owns five Smitty’s restaurants in Winnipeg and the Dyck group owns three. Together they also own a location in Steinbach, along with the Sleep Suite Motel.
Even anticipating construction delays, the ownership group plans to open the Niverville location in late 2022.
The Niverville Smitty’s will be approximately 5,500 square feet of indoor use plus around 1,700 square feet of patio space.
“The design is still very much in progress,” says Ms. Dyck, “as we have learned a lot about space and energy efficiency during the pandemic and are taking some of the best pieces of our existing restaurants, as well as some potential new technologies and ideas for efficiencies, to put into the design.”
The restaurant will also include an area that can be made private to accommodate gatherings and a full-service lounge which will house up to 12 video lottery terminals.
Currently, the provincial government has paused the distribution of VLTs due to COVID-19 and it is unsure when that will change.
“We expect that when we open we will likely not have VLTs immediately,” Ms. Dyck says. “When we do, the LGCA will likely start us with a few and see what the demand is for VLTs and then add or remove machines accordingly.”
Management hopes to hire as many local residents as possible. Ms. Dyck says that they will need everything from entry level positions, such as dishwashers or hosts, to line cooks and servers, all the way up to managers. She says their restaurants generally run on a four-manager system.
“We love supporting and working with the communities that we are in,” she says, “which includes hiring from the community as much as possible.”
Council had only a few minor questions for Ms. Dyck, one of which had to do with the potential decibel level of the proposed outdoor patio, which will be positioned quite close to a residential area.
Ms. Dyck assured council that her team would be mindful of the noise. She pointed out that they have used a decibel sound meter at one other location to ensure they maintain appropriate noise levels.
After answering a few questions, council voted unanimously to approve the new restaurant.
Kennel Question
The meeting included a lengthy discussion by council members and members of the public regarding a few minor clarifications in wording and content of previously established bylaws.
First, there is some concern about kennels in town. One resident expressed a worry that if kennels are allowed in Niverville, so-called “puppy mills” could follow.
Council clarified that this is not what the bylaw is intended to allow—and in fact the bylaw in question is meant to prevent that problem. Currently, kennels are permitted in town and the owner of a kennel wouldn’t need to seek permission from council to build one in a commercial zone.
The change being requested was to allow kennels in town only under a conditional use permit. This means that if a kennel were to come to Niverville, the owners would need to seek a permit.
Size of Decks
A discussion also ensued regarding the size of backyard decks, with some residents voicing concern that they would not be able to choose the size of their own deck.
Council clarified that their only interest is in making sure that decks don’t take up more than 50 percent of a given lot.
“It’s not about the size of the deck but the size of the deck compared to the size of the lot,” explained Mayor Myron Dyck.
Transition to Town Water
The most contentious item on the agenda were concerns brought forward by residents regarding their perception that they may soon be forced to stop using their wells and instead transition to using town water.
These residents are worried about the cost of making the switch, as well as the fact that they don’t want fluoride added to their water.
Council responded to these concerns by clarifying the rather complicated issue. Essentially, right now most people in the older areas of Niverville use private or shared wells, whereas most residents in the newer homes are connected to town water.
The issue at hand revolves around what happens to a property when its well fails and stops working. The old bylaw stated that if a well failed and the town’s water supply was available to them, the owner of the well would need to switch to the town water supply.
Because the word “fail” is a bit vague, council has decided to clarify the policy.
The word “fail,” according to council, means that the well is not fixable and a new one would need to be dug. If a well simply needs a new pump or something similar, it would not be considered to have failed.
In the event that a resident is primarily concerned with the cost of switching to town water, council pointed out that if a well had already failed, the cost of digging a new one would already be similar in scope to transitioning to the water system.
Council also pointed out that making the switch would open the door to potential savings in other areas. For example, if town water lines have already been placed near someone’s house, they are likely already receiving a discount on their homeowners insurance due to the proximity to a fire hydrant.
To find out if this is the case for individual homeowners, Mayor Dyck recommends checking with one’s insurance company.
In that same vein, Mayor Dyck pointed out that the Town of Niverville will soon need a new water tanker at a cost of approximately $350,000. This tanker is needed because many residents have wells and thus have no nearby fire hydrants. The cost of this tanker will have to be spread out amongst all Niverville taxpayers.
“More than half [of Niverville residents] would say, ‘I don’t need a tanker because I have a fire hydrant in front of my house!’” the mayor said.
Even expenses like maintaining a water softener and buying salt may offset the cost of moving onto the town water supply.
“Overall, what is better?” Mayor Dyck said. “Is it better for council to leave it and say ‘You can continue to have your well and the risks that come with it’? [When] more holes get punched in the ground, the more potential there is for things that might not be good for the groundwater to leech into it. Should council just absolve themselves of that and say ‘You’re on your own’? Or is it better for council to say that every resident in a community should have access to what would be considered quality water?”
After these clarifications, some residents in attendance said they had come to agree. Others said they still didn’t necessarily agree but were glad to at least understand the situation a little better.
All these amendments were unanimously approved.
Improvement to Notices?
One homeowner, Diane Kroeker, attended the meeting and said that she appreciated council listening patiently to all who spoke, answering every question they were asked. However, she felt that the town could improve their process of notifying people about upcoming public hearings.
Kroeker argued that much of the discussion that took place at the meeting regarding wells, decks, and kennels may have been unnecessary if more people had been able to comprehend the “legalese” included on the notices in the first place.
“The people in town need to know about these things,” Kroeker said. “And the notices that come out from the town, we just don’t understand them!”
Kroeker suggested that the town’s website, which already lists in advance each public hearing, could include more everyday language.
Rezonings
A second reading was given to a zoning bylaw amendment regarding several properties on the far west end of town, in the subdivision known as Fifth Avenue Estates West.
The area between Centre Street and Venture Way and Krahn Road and Mulberry Avenue was requested to be rezoned from a commercial corridor to medium-density residential.
The area between Centre Street and Ridgemont Drive and Weiland Point and Mulberry Avenue was requested to be rezoned from medium-density residential to high-density residential.
Finally, the area at the corner of Von Riesen Drive and the railroad tracks was requested to be rezoned from medium-density residential to low-density residential.
Odds and Ends
Jenelle Penner of 24 Wyldewood Crescent requested permission to open a hair salon out of her home. The request was unanimously approved.
Monique Giroux of 42 Claremont Drive requested a renewal of the license for her home daycare. This request was also unanimously approved.
The owners of Metro Centre Ltd. at 41131 Sixth Avenue North requested a variance for their property, asking for a reduced rear yard setback from 25 feet to 22 feet for their primary building and reduced rear yard setback from 15 feet to no less than three feet eight inches to accommodate large shipping containers at the rear of their primary building. This, too, was unanimously approved.