A regular meeting of the Weyburn City Council was held on August 9, here are the major points of interest:
*Council has decided not to begin developing the site of the former Souris Valley Hospital for now, as a lack of public input or an anchor development have not led them to make any final decisions regarding the future of the area.
Stantec Consulting has prepared a number of concepts for Council's consideration regarding the redevelopment of the area, using input gathered at public consultations. Despite this, and displaying five concept plans at City Hall since June, the City has received little input regarding the areas future.
"Despite our hopes for public input, limited comments have been received with most favouring one or another of the concepts and no strong consensus indicating the preferred concept for future land use," said Manager of Community Services Doug Mulhall in his report to Council.
Mulhall stated that without an anchor development for the area to fund start-up costs it is not fiscally prudent to pursue detailed infrastructure design work, or physical construction work.
Council agreed with Mulhall's recommendation to seed the new ground-work areas to grass and to maintain the area as open green space until an identified need for redevelopment has been achieved and the City is in a position to proceed with the expenditures necessary. They have decided to allow more time for the public to view the potential plans at City Hall and give their input.
*Tom Hoffart of Brown Crescent spoke to Council regarding the installation of a 15-metre wind turbine on his next-door neighbour's property.
Hoffart said he was upset that the City approved the installation of the turbine without prior notification or consent of the neighbourhood. He was asking Council to overturn their decision to allow the turbine within city limits.
"We have talked to some realtors in the area and they believe it will impact property values and make the area surrounding the wind turbine less appealing to potential buyers," stated Hoffart in a letter to Council. "We paid $72,000 plus for our lot and if we knew we will be beside a 15-metre wind turbine, we would not have bought the lot."
Council explained that this is a conditional one-year approval to determine the neighbourhood impact and whether or not the City would allow for other such developments.
Mayor Debra Button said that these conditions were explained to the property owner, who invested $27,000 to install the wind-energy producer, and agreed to remove the turbine after one year if it appeared that the neighbourhood was being negatively impacted by the turbine.
