The members of council have cleared the way for a new subdivision in the city's northwest corner.
At the June 11 regular meeting of council, council approved a motion to sell a section of land located behind the homes on the east end of Wellock Road to Trimount Developments Ltd., a Medicine Hat based company that is responsible for the Petterson Point condo development in the Trojan subdivision.
The City had initially been considering developing the land themselves as the next phase of the Dominion Heights sudivision. However, before taking that step they issued a request for proposals and ultimately selected a submission from Trimount.
Mayor Gary St. Onge said the Trimount proposal was appealing to the city as they have an aggressive timeline and plan to start this summer.
"They want to go full blast with this," St. Onge said. "They want to really get going by July, August and have things started right away."
Aside from providing some much needed lots for Estevan, St. Onge said going with a private developer offers a number of other tangible benefits for the City.
"First of all we won't have any money tied into it ourselves, so that's an advantage," he said. "We have always wanted to have developers develop the whole works really. Regina doesn't develop any lots themselves, it's all developers."
City manager Jim Puffalt said going with a private developer also frees up City staff to focus on other pressing matters.
"It's a great step forward for the city," he said. "It takes all the pressure off the City to develop lots, it takes the pressure off of us to finance the lots and it frees up our engineering staff to do other things.
"We still have a small (development) coming up this year but this is a lot of money that we are talking and we are able to turn that cost into a revenue item (the land was sold for $4.5 million) and somebody else will be able to provide to the community. It's a win-win for everybody."
Trimount president Jason Fleury said the development will be a mixture of 46 single family lots and multi-family units such as town homes, row homes and four storey apartment style lots.
He said their first foray into Estevan at Petterson Point has been a success and they are looking forward to creating a great new community.
"We are really excited about it," he said in an interview with The Mercury. "The city is growing and we are excited to be part of the growth."
As for a timeline, Fleury confirmed they would like to have lots available by the fall.
"The engineering drawings are being done as we speak," said Fleury who added there will be some architectural controls in place at the new development. "We want to continue building and working with the City to develop Estevan."
As for the other proposed development in the city's northwest corner, The Meadows, there seems to be little in the way of activity leading many to suspect the project has stalled or may be in jeopardy of moving forward. St. Onge admitted he has been disappointed with the lack of activity.
"I'm not really happy with that one. The guy was so insistent that he was really serious but it just doesn't seem to be happening."
