Dauphin city councillors gathered for a special meeting, May 19, to lend their support to a proposed housing development.
The Willow Lake Properties proposal involves the construction of a 45-unit apartment building adjacent to Riverside Road as phase one of a larger, $11 million development, which will include affordable rental units to help address local housing needs.
At the meeting, council approved an incentive package to aid in the development and provided a letter demonstrating the need for housing in the community as the developers seek Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation support for the project.
“The request came from the developer. They’re trying to make their budget work so that this project can actually go ahead. For them to make the numbers work and for this project to go ahead, they were looking at the City of Dauphin to provide them with an incentive package,” Dauphin Economic Development manager Martijn van Luijn said, adding the City has provided incentives for all major developments in the community over the past several years.
“For this much needed development to go ahead the developers requested that we provide the water and sewer install from the nearest access point.”
The estimated cost of making the water and sewer connections to the development from the intersection of Riverside Road and Main Street South is estimated at $460,000.
But that number represents service for more than just the Willow Lake Properties project. With 60 acres of land behind the project also awaiting development, the City is also ensuring it is prepared to service that land when it is developed.
“I’ve been working with council to be proactive when it comes to development,” van Luijn said.
“We need the housing, there’s no doubt about it. If that means that we need to invest up front and that entices others to develop, that might sound as us taking a risk, but I think it’s a calculated risk. It’s something that you need to do as a municipality to be able to get people to come and develop.”
And development is badly needed, van Luijn said, adding he tried to stress that in the letter to CMHC.
“CMHC was not convinced that Dauphin needed additional housing, which is mindboggling,” he said, adding CMHC was probably relying on high level statistical data, which shows the depopulation in the Parkland as a whole.
“I provided as much data as possible in this letter, for example, a recent growth in the immigrant population and the fact that city hall gets daily phone calls from people looking for a place to live,” van Luijn said, adding Manitoba Health numbers show a population growth and he encouraged CMHC to research that.
With the new community justice centre and the new day care facility coming down the pipe, the need is only going to grow, van Luijn added.
“I put this whole package together in the hope that the developer can convince the financier to become a partner in his project.
“We’re just trying to support this as much as we can and at the same time, trying to think ahead and get ready for the future.”
Agreeing to the incentive package in principle, council will consider the $460,000 in funding as part of its 2027 budget deliberations.