For Niverville’s mayor, Myron Dyck, May was a busy month. At council’s public meeting on June 3, he shared some thoughts on his recent activities in his bimonthly mayor’s report.
Annexation Update
Niverville’s anticipated annexation of land on its east side is still up in the air, Dyck says, following the province’s decision in November to decline a joint proposal with the neighbouring of RM of Hanover to grow the community by 2,600 acres.
“The past [provincial] administration had asked us to present a 50-year plan,” Dyck said. “So we presented a 50-year plan. Then the new administration comes in and they say, ‘We’re [wanting] a 20- to 25-year plan.’ So we’ve submitted it, and Hanover signed off on it.”
That amended plan was submitted in March. Technically speaking, according to provincial bylaw, Niverville’s council won’t get another audience with the province on this subject until March 2026.
“We will do our homework on our end,” Dyck said. “The landowners who will be a part of the 25-year plan will be communicated with. This time we will be setting up meetings. I will be talking to each one of them, face to face.”
Lower-Cost Housing Initiatives
In recent days, Dyck attended the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ conference held in Ottawa. The prime minister addressed the attendees, in addition to other federal leaders.
One exceptional aspect of the event, for Dyck, was a tour of the Water Ridge District, demonstrating an innovative new kind of neighbourhood being constructed on 310 acres of a decommissioned air force base.
“It’s inclusive,” Dyck said. “You have people with million-dollar homes and you have people on rent assist or, the way they call it, lower-market homes.”
What makes this project especially unique, he added, is the way in which each pocket community is being created. Imagine a square block of homes, he says, where there are no private front or back yards. Instead all the homes face a central shared courtyard.
“That’s where you have your community garden,” Dyck said. “That’s where you have your big park and greenspace for kids to play. It just becomes a gathering place that you’ve essentially created.”
Only sidewalks exist within the interior of the block and they are 11 feet wide to accommodate foot and bicycle movement only. Streets and parking exist on the perimeter of the neighbourhood.
It’s an ideal, Dyck says, that might give communities like Niverville the opportunity to provide attractive neighbourhoods that offer lower-market housing options during these tough economic times.
While Niverville’s council doesn’t see it as part of their mandate to invest in housing, Dyck says other councils across the nation are setting up housing corporations which run at an arm’s length to council, similar to a community development corporation (CDC).
“Let’s say, for instance, we were to set up the Niverville Housing Corporation,” Dyck tells The Citizen. “It would be a group of non-elected officials who would then be able to apply for grants that are given to housing corporations that are looking to do lower-market [housing].”
It’s food for thought, Dyck says, and an important part of ensuring that every resident has access to affordable living within the community.