Zoning variance bid rejected

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This article was published 07/07/2023 (1056 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city’s planning committee this week rejected the zoning application for the Redwood Motor Inn’s transformation into a family reunification facility.  Following the decision, the motel’s new owner says he is concerned for the mothers and children currently living at the Brandon facility.

In a planning commission meeting Wednesday evening, commissioners voted against approving the facility’s zoning variance application, which would have permitted the Redwood to operate for a purpose other than a motel.

Commission members were concerned with the Redwood’s location being unsuitable for children and whether the variance application was the correct process to follow for such a facility.

The variance application had been brought by Aurora Recovery Centre, a private addiction treatment centre in Gimli, which now owns the Redwood in Brandon. Aurora is converting the motel into a long-term recovery facility that helps parents recovering from addiction reunite with their children and learn basic life skills to help them work toward independent living.

“I can’t believe it happened, when the zoning officers said that they supported what we’re doing because it’s like a hotel,” Michael Bruneau, the president of Aurora Recovery Centre, told the Sun about the commission’s decision. Bruneau said that he plans to appeal the commission’s decision. In the meantime, he said that he is going to ask the city if he can operate the facility until they can find a new location, as parents and children have already moved into the former motel.

“The truth is that these mothers are going to lose their children if we don’t keep going,” he said of the Redwood facility, now dubbed the Aurora Family Reunification Home. His concern is that Child and Family Services will apprehend the children now that they don’t have the stable living situation the recovery centre offered.

The principal planner for the city, Sonikile Tembo, told the Sun that the Planning and Buildings Department had given Aurora the options of pursuing a variance or a rezoning application. A zoning variance allows for a slight change to a building’s existing use, whereas a rezoning application changes the building’s zoning designation entirely.

Based on the information Aurora gave her, Tembo told the Sun in an email, it was determined they could pursue a variance application.

Tembo presented that variance application to the committee Wednesday night and proposed that the commission approve the application. She said that because the motel will still be catering to a transient population and that services are optional for those staying in the facility, the department determined that only a variance and not a full rezoning application was necessary.

The department had received a lot of questions and concerns about children being in the facility which is close to where the Youth for Christ Westman and the John Howard Society’s proposed transitional housing facility will be located, Tembo said at the hearing.

The YFC and JHS facility on 16th Street North, which is expected to be constructed and operating by sometime in 2024, aims to help give people who have been recently released from jail or shelter a place to live and receive support to get back on their feet.

To address these concerns, Tembo said that the department made the application contingent on Aurora screening any outdoor areas with fencing or landscaping. Another condition stated that Aurora must obtain a licence for the facility if the province requires it.

Chantel Klainchar, the program director for Aurora’s Brandon facility, told the commission that the facility is staffed 24 hours a day and that the organization has plans to build a privacy fence.

The only opposition to the application at the hearing was from Ross Robinson, the executive director of John Howard Society Brandon. During his presentation, Robinson said he opposed the approval of the application because of the facility’s location.

He said that the area isn’t suitable for children because it isn’t near any services such as playgrounds or a library. He also said that Redwood still hasn’t shaken its reputation from when it was a motel and housed sex workers and drug dealers, which puts the vulnerable mothers and children housed there now at risk.

Robinson, who has previously sat on the planning commission, said that he didn’t believe that the zoning variation should have been considered minor, and should instead be subject to a public outreach process as required by the city’s zoning bylaw. He also took issue with the facility operating before a zoning application had been approved.

“So, I guess their approach to this is it’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission, and I don’t think that should be supported,” Robinson told the commission.

Still, he emphasized the importance of the facility addressing a need for people in the addiction recovery process.

“We’re not against the project, just its location,” Robinson said. “It complements our project; we need this project in Brandon.”

In an interview with the Sun, Robinson explained that sex offenders released from jail have difficulty finding places to stay because of court-ordered conditions to stay away from places where children could be. The location of the Aurora facility which houses children, could limit the JHS and YFC’s proposed transitional housing facility’s ability to help those individuals reintegrate. However, Robinson said that the privacy fence would help to mitigate that issue.

While he said that the JHS supports the Aurora facility, he emphasized the need to follow processes when operating transitional housing facilities.

“The John Howard Society recognizes that there is an immediate need for these services right now,” he said. “But we also recognize that there are processes in place to make sure that whatever is provided for vulnerable people is suitable. And to do that, we have to follow the processes.”

Still, Fern Cook, who works for Sandy Bay’s community wellness jurisdiction initiative, said that the zoning variance rejection hasn’t shaken her confidence in Aurora facilities. She works to keep children out of CFS care by working with parents who have addictions.

She said that she has sent many Sandy Bay community members to Aurora’s treatment facility in Gimli because of a lack of resources in the First Nation for rehabilitating community members. She said she currently has 10 community members in the Gimli facility and some mothers in Aurora’s Brandon facility.

“This is so important, this reunification centre, because [the mothers] get to connect with their children again,” Cook said.

Cook said that if the Brandon facility cannot operate, the parents living there will have to leave and their children will be returned to CFS care or foster homes.

“Those mothers are just going to come home, and I don’t really have anything set up for them right now,” Cook said. “They’re going to be couch surfing [or] just living with family members.”

Appeals of zoning applications go before city council for approval or rejection. If the variance is rejected by council, applicants can bring a rezoning application to the planning commission.

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