The RM of Ritchot’s April 8 council meeting agenda was a busy one, covering a variety of initiatives.

Based on a report provided to council by the recreation committee, progress is being made on the D’Auteuil Park playground upgrades. At this stage, a new play structure is on order with an expected installation date of June.

“Our recreation services team teamed up with 377 Kindergarten to Grade 6 students from IDC School and Gab-Roy to let kids help shape the future of D’Auteuil Park,” the report says. “Students were given three playground design options and after lots of excited discussion, they voted for their favourite. Classes really dug into what makes a great play space, talking about accessibility, fairness, and how all kids play differently. Their pride in having a real voice in the community was amazing to see.”

Also pertaining to Île-des-Chênes, council voted unanimously in favour of selling a small triangle of municipally owned land for a potential grocery chain. The parcel is located along Old 59 Highway next to the community daycare.

“We are looking to sell it off to Highway 59 developers who own the rest of the land,” CAO Shane Ray told council. “Their plan is to help the Clearview Co-op establish a grocery store there. It’s a huge need for the community that I think we all believe is very important.”

The parcel will be sold for $42,400.

First steps for IDC’s new fire hall are also about to get underway. Council is working with TC Energy to secure land for its construction.

“We are looking at Colliers to walk us through the process of what would be the best build method,” Ray said.

Hiring consultants early on would allow administration to decide whether the project method should be design-build or design-bid-build.

Councillor Janine Boulanger shared her concerns that the scale of the project doesn’t appear to match the scale of the planning approach.

“I can see it for a hospital or a school,” Boulanger said. “Those are the kinds of things where you’ve got so many balls in play.”

“I don’t want to make mistakes,” Ray countered. “We don’t know if we need an architect or just a single company who’s going to build it. So this process will help us determine the next step.”

As to the scale of the project, Ray reminded council to consider future growth in the region and the need to build to a scale that will accommodate growth.

“I think we need to look at living quarters there, potentially,” Ray said. “And we need to think about whether it’s going to turn into a full-time fire house… One of the things that the fire department is saying is [that] this needs to be built to hold a ladder truck, because at some point in the future we’re going to go over three-storey [builds].”

Councillor Joel Lemoine suggested that an advantage may be found in researching other fire hall projects around the province. Council agreed to table the project until further investigation has been done.

Finally, council voted in favor of proceeding with the first steps on a John Q Public initiative to support affordable seniors’ housing units. John Q Public is a subsidiary of the Capital Planning Region (CPR), of which Ritchot is a member.

Currently, John Q Public awaits the approval of federal grants for this purpose. If provided, municipalities of the CPR would have first opportunity to access them, similar to the recent subsidized daycare project.

In order to qualify, Ritchot would need to provide five acres of serviced land on which to construct the units.

“We have identified some land that we could use for this purpose,” Ray said.