Western Asphalt to pay $150K

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This article was published 17/07/2019 (2450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Western Asphalt Products will have to pay $150,000 toward water infrastructure for its east end industrial development, Brandon City Council decided on Monday evening — going against what the company had asked council for.

Company president Dean Arnill came to council asking to amend the development agreement it signed for its Limestone Road development with the city. He asked council to temporarily waive the agreement’s requirement to build public water infrastructure on the site. The company doesn’t need it for its development and the cost is too high, he said.

“We don’t disagree with building the water line. It’s just a matter of timing and when it makes sense to build the water line,” he said.

One option city administration presented was to have the company pay half the cost of a water line from Richmond Avenue East to Quartz Road upfront in lieu of building the whole line. The cost is currently pegged at $150,000. Arnill asked that the company also not to have to pay that sum as capital project money will be tied up stabilizing soft ground at the site.

The issue at stake is the plan for the company to build a 6,000-square-foot terminal on Limestone Road that would house a boiler and a hot oil heater. The building is necessary for the continued development in the area, Arnill said.

In a presentation to council, the city’s chief planner, Ryan Nickel, said it would set a bad precedent if councillors allowed Western Asphalt to proceed without some kind of a guarantee on the public water and road infrastructure.

“This is something that administration cannot support … And we cannot support it because this area has been identified for a serviced industrial area in a city adopted bylaw,” Nickel said.

Increasing serviced industrial land in Brandon is one of the largest priorities to grow the city moving forward. While rural municipalities can offer lots of unserviced industrial land, Brandon can compete by adding services like water and roads to potential building sites.

“We need serviced industrial for us to compete,” Nickel said. “That’s our one competitive advantage.”

Nickel acknowledged that the city had previously reduced the public infrastructure in a May 6 amendment to the agreement, but said council shouldn’t let the pendulum swing too far in that direction. Letting the developer go ahead without a guarantee on building a water main and roads only pushes the problem down the line.

The original development agreement was “intense,” Arnill said, and the company is looking to fully develop an area of the city that previously sat empty for 20 years. He also highlighted the amount of tax money the company has paid and dollars the development has brought.

“Our goal and intention is to develop this site, there’s no question about that … All I’m trying to do is create long-term jobs and create a long-term project for Brandon,” Arnill said. “Rail is not a small project, it’s a long-term vision.”

The company is in the middle of trying to build a railside asphalt-product offloading facility on Limestone Road. The site links up with a rail network that connects to communities across North America. In March 2018, the company completed a deal to buy 71 acres of vacant land at the site south of the Maple Leaf production plant.

Councillors debated the motion to amend the development agreement for more than half an hour on Monday evening. Coun. Barry Cullen (Victoria) acknowledged that no one on council is against future development but said he didn’t want to set a bad precedent by not requiring the company do make any contributions toward infrastructure.

Coun. John LoRegio (Meadows-Waverly) raised an issue with the city making undue requests of a developer working on private land, but his motion was defeated.

Council also voted to combine the properties at 14, 20, 26 and 38 Limestone Rd. This means that future building on one of those properties would require the developer to build public infrastructure to get building permits. The company would have to go back to council to re-subdivide that property in the future.

Coun. Kris Desjarlais (Rosser) said consolidating the land ensures that the properties get proper infrastructure whenever they are developed moving forward.

When reached on Tuesday, Nickel said the city would move as quickly as possible to sign the new development agreement with Western Asphalt. Arnill said on Monday the company wants to start building the terminal building as soon as possible given the short Manitoba construction season.

Arnill could not be reached for comment on the future of the Limestone Road development by the end of the day on Tuesday.

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_