Neepawa seniors content, open to new ideas

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/12/2023 (742 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NEEPAWA — Senior citizens in Neepawa, a town known for its multiculturalism and beauty, having been named “Manitoba’s Most Beautiful Town” by Travel Manitoba more than any other place, are quite happy with their community.

But there’s always room for improvement, Barb McLachlan, who was born and raised in Neepawa and raised her family there, says.

“I guess there’s always room for improvement. I’m just very happy overall,” she said. Living at Kinsmen Kourts, an assisted living facility in Neepawa, located 76 kilometres northeast of Brandon, there’s always plenty to do, McLachlan told the Sun.

When a group of University of Manitoba students studying for their masters degree in city planning came to Neepawa to meet with senior citizens to find out how to make the town more age-friendly, most of the older adults echoed McLachlan’s sentiments that the town was already very accommodating to its older citizens.

The students, whose cohorts did similar research and presentation work in Minnedosa, located 52 kilometres northeast of Brandon and Carberry, located 51 kilometres east of Brandon, sought to contribute to research concerning small towns of Manitoba and how age-friendly they were. They presented their findings to a group of seniors at Neepawa’s Yellowhead Manor on the afternoon of Dec. 11. Prior to that, they had first visited the town on Sept. 28, again on Oct. 17, and on Nov. 21 to interview seniors, explore the town, share their impressions of the community’s strengths and challenges, and share their ideas and suggestions.

Their study was based on the World Health Organization’s Global Age Friendly Cities: A Guide, and the study focused on housing, transportation, outdoor spaces and buildings and social participation.

“We started coming here as part of our research to understand how we can ensure health for our aging population, and to learn from older adults in this town how we can improve and make their lives better,” said student John Baanbil.

In 2021, Neepawa boasted a population of 5,685 people, 1,020 of those who were over the age of 65. To suggest improvements to the quality of life of those seniors, the students focused on four key geographic areas – Main Street/Highway 16, which separates the northern and southern parts of the town; Hamilton Streert, an east/west route through town that will likely become a central connection point as development increases with the new hospital that is currently being built; the Flats, which is the park closest to the centre of town that features a soccer field and skiing and skating opportunities in the winter, as well as allotment gardens and a story-board feature from the Neepawa Public Library; Mountain Avenue, the town’s primary north/south connection which runs through the community’s downtown array of shops and services.

When it comes to housing, the students stated that Neepawa’s rapidly growing population — which they said was the result of increased immigration due to economic activities — has nearly doubled over the past decade. Households have grown in size, but so have the number of individuals living alone.

New demand for, and decreasing availability of, rental properties has put a strain on the housing market in Neepawa, the students said, which has led to a demand for new, denser forms of housing. To capitalize on this demand, the group recommended that denser forms of housing be integrated into the existing community and along the town’s commercial section of Mountain Ave.

To accomplish these housing goals, the Town of Neepawa would have to legalize and promote housing above commercial storefronts, eliminate secondary suite parking requirements, prioritize infill development in the town centre, provide municipal incentives to developers for purpose-built rentals and multi-family dwellings, and require new single detached homes to be amenable to having suites added on.

“There’s an increased need for all these new types of housing in town,” said student Evan Ferguson. “We’ve looked at some of the opportunities that we see for different kinds of housing that will lead to a flexible and really robust way of dealing with this.”

In their focus on Mountain Avenue, the students said that the width of the street, which is intended to accommodate vehicles, makes pedestrian crosswalks dangerous. To improve this, they suggested introducing foliage, a median, curb bump-outs and safer crosswalks. Other ideas included widening the sidewalks and changing the parking form diagonal to parallel, as well as installing bicycle lanes.

For Main Street, the students said slowing down traffic with improved crosswalks and a median would improve connectivity between businesses on the north and south sides of town. New crosswalks were also suggested.

The group reimagined the intersection of Hamilton Street and Tupper Avenue to include bike lanes and a narrowed width heading east to the incoming hospital.

Adding to the many activities already available at the Flats, the students suggested additional activities such as cornhole or chess and an adaptive flood plain boardwalk in the northeast corner.

Jessica Miranda, one of the students who worked on the project, said getting to know the town of Neepawa and its seniors was a lot of fun.

“I definitely learned a lot, and I think it’s really great that we can apply the things that we learned in theory. The community consultation part is really important, because that’s what we’ll be doing [in our careers],” she said.

Michelle Kasprick is a senior’s resource co-ordinator in Neepawa, and Brenda Tonn is a consultant with Age Friendly Manitoba. Both women were at the presentation on Dec. 11, and have worked closely with the students and seniors for the project.

In general, seniors living in Neepawa seem quite content with their quality of life, Kasprick said.

“They’re pretty happy in Neepawa, and they’re satisfied with the programs available to them.”

The students did an excellent job with their work and brought a refreshing outside perspective to many of the seniors and those who work with them, Tonn said.

“It’s great to have that much vested interest and that much of a detailed explanation of what can be done,” she said, before re-iterating Kasprick’s sentiments about the satisfaction of Neepawa’s senior population. “Neepawa is leaps and bounds ahead as far as integrating services for all ages goes.”

If the Town of Neepawa decides to follow some of the suggestions made by the University of Manitoba students, Tonn says she wouldn’t be surprised to see Neepawa become known as the “poster child” of healthy aging communities.

“It really is a beautiful town, and I think it’s a great place to be able to age in place and still have that sort of rural flair,” she said.

» mleybourne@brandonsun.com

» X: @miraleybourne