Islamic Centre makes fresh proposal for new home

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This article was published 18/04/2024 (892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Brandon Islamic Centre formally requested that the RM of Cornwallis donate a property it owns within the City of Brandon during the municipal council’s Tuesday meeting.

The organization’s secretary, Dr. Mohammad Abidullah, said the organization is requesting a parcel of land from the RM located on 1850 Frederick St.

The centre has long sought a new home as its 10th Street location is not large enough to accommodate everyone who wishes to attend Friday prayers. For larger events, like Eid al-Fitr, the local Islamic community has taken to renting out outside spaces like the Dome Building.

However, reached by phone on Wednesday, Cornwallis Reeve Sam Hofer spoke of a possible complication in the centre’s acquisition of the land.

He said in 2022, the RM’s previous council agreed to sell the property to a business for “substantial offer” as long as certain conditions were met.

“It’s my understanding that in talking to that developer, that the conditions that they put in that purchase from two years ago have reasonably been met,” Hofer said.

In a nutshell, Abidullah said during his presentation on Tuesday, the centre provides religious services, funerals, social interactions, potlucks, promotional services, research and more to the local Islamic community.

On top of that, he said the centre sponsors local events like the Western Manitoba Science Fair, sponsors a scholarship for the Brandon School Division and helps attract qualified workers from other countries to the Brandon area.

He explained that in 2004, the Islamic centre gave up a parcel of land on Rosser Avenue East where it had established a place of worship to the City of Brandon, which wanted to build a police and fire station there. For whatever reason, that project was ultimately not pursued.

“I have been searching online and been trying to get any example across Canada from the east to west coast, from the northern border to the southern border if there has been any other instance of a religious place of worship being handed over to be demolished to provide services to the community,” he said, adding that his community feels pride in having done so.

“We believe community building is mutual. When we request the City of Brandon or the RM of Cornwallis for some assistance, I think it is time to reciprocate.”

Abidullah said the benefit to communities like Cornwallis from establishing a new centre would be in recruiting new professionals to immigrate to the area. He asked that this be added on top of the dollar value when considering the request.

According to him, the centre has recently helped arrange for three specialist doctors to move to the area and is working on bringing another to come in August.

At the end of the presentation, Hofer said council’s legislative and finance committee would discuss the proposal at its next meeting and recommend a decision for the full council to make.

On Wednesday, Hofer said that meeting likely won’t take place next week as council will be debating its 2024 budget. However, he said he expects a decision on the propety to be made sometime in the next month.

“We do have a land sale policy, we have to abide by (it),” Hofer said. “In all fairness, even though it hasn’t been signed off on, we agreed in 2022 to sell it for that dollar value once the conditions are met.”

Another possible complication raised by Hofer is that the property in question is two or three fragmented parcels of land and the centre would likely need to acquire additional adjacent land to have enough room to build a community and worship centre.

In January, the Sun reported that the Islamic Centre was looking at establishing a new community centre on a 3.75-acre lot on Patricia Avenue just south of Brandon city limits in Cornwallis that is owned by a member of the local Islamic community.

They had signed a memorandum of understanding with the owner to purchase two acres of that lot if the City of Brandon was willing to extend water and sewer services to the property, as it was not hooked up to services in Cornwallis.

At the time, centre president Amir Farooq said city staff had expressed concerns about doing so. A report attached to a December Cornwallis council meeting written by Brandon staff said there wasn’t sufficient capacity in the area to add the property to utility services.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Abidullah said city staff had then recommended at a February meeting with the centre that they consider the Frederick Street property.

By email, Brandon’s general manager of development services, Mark Allard, confirmed the city had made that suggestion at the February meeting.

“It was unclear if the size of property was sufficient,” Allard wrote. “Administration has had no further conversations since that time. Servicing this property within city limits has far less challenges than the Patricia Avenue site.”

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