On May 7 at 9:00 a.m., Niverville’s town council gathered at the Heritage Centre for their bimonthly public meeting.
A hearing was held for the closure of a back lane running north of Main Street from BSI Insurance to Prairie Trail. The property owner and future developer of 31, 41, and 51 Main Street requested the closure in order to begin plans on new commercial development. The land is intended to be used to create parking in order to help alleviate Main Street parking.
A portion of the back lane borders the south side of three-fenced residential properties along First Street North. One property owner attended the meeting and addressed council with her concerns over loss of privacy with a parking lot behind her backyard. She requested of council the opportunity to purchase half of the back lane along her property in order to allow her to plant trees for added privacy. In order to work together for everyone’s benefit, the developer has offered to provide $500 to each of the homeowners in question, which they can apply towards privacy trees on their lots if they desire.
Council unanimously passed the motion to close the lane, indicating that the sale, lease, or retention of the lane now under town ownership does not require a public hearing. They anticipate creating a resolution on this in the near future.
Also on the agenda, council approved a motion to appoint Public Works Manager Ryan Dyck as the noxious weed inspector for the community for another year.
A variety of tenders were awarded for the new Community Resource Centre (CRC). The parking lot tender will go to Fast Brothers, for their bid of almost $1.3 million. Nine bids were received and the accepted bid came in $90,000 lower. The quote for installation includes the entire shared parking lot between the new high school and CRC. The province will be sharing in this cost with the town.
A parking lot lighting contract was awarded to Trotco Electric for $51,000 plus GST. This bid came in about $10,000 below other bids.
The drainage system contract went to Taillieu Construction, the same company that is providing drainage for the new Fifth Avenue West residential development surrounding the high school and CRC. The bid came in at $30,000.
Finally, financing tenders were received from the Niverville Credit Union (NCU) and the Royal Bank of Canada. Council made a motion to accept the tender from NCU for a $4.5 million mortgage and $13.5 million line of credit. The advantage of financing through NCU, CAO Eric King states, is the right to pay off the mortgage early if council chooses to do so.
“Our commitment [to the CRC] for $5 million is $500,000 cash and then $4.5 million borrowing into the future,” says King.
He adds that property taxes will not be increased to cover the mortgage.
The usual evening council meeting scheduled for May 21 will be postponed to May 28 to accommodate an upcoming trip by Mayor Myron Dyck, Eric King, and Councillor Chris Wiebe to Toronto for a technology start-up conference. Their goal will be to network with potential entrepreneurs, promoting Niverville as a great location to start their businesses. Niverville’s council has been invited to attend the event free of charge.