City Plan passes third reading

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This article was published 05/03/2025 (386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon City Council passed third and final reading of the Brandon City Plan on Monday evening, putting to rest an exhaustive four-year public process that has faced significant criticism from some local residents.

“I was looking back on our history on the city plan and the project folder was 2021,” Brandon’s director of planning and buildings, Ryan Nickel, said on Monday evening. “I sure hope it doesn’t take us four years next time we go through the city plan.”

The creation of a new city plan was made necessary by the dissolution of the Brandon Planning District in 2020 as the old development plan included elements for the other municipalities within that district.

The plan was framed by the administration as a high-level guide for how Brandon should develop over the next 30 years. As reported a year ago, the guidelines in the city plan are broadly summarized in a section titled “Our Vision” before being explored in a bit more depth in three sections: “Healthy City,” “Moving City” and “Growing City.”

The vision section states Brandon residents care about transportation options, municipal services, health, transparency, reconciliation, housing and each other.

But it was transportation and development that seemed to catch the ire of some Brandon residents who were concerned that city councillors were attempting to impose mobility restrictions that would curb their ability to not only move around the city but also travel outside the city.

Targeted meetings and public engagement sessions at locations across the city were temporarily paused in early 2023 when a group of frustrated residents loudly complained over what they saw as the furtive implementation of a “15-minute city” plan. The city’s engagement sessions resumed in the summer of 2024.

While no one from the community brought the 15-minute city concern back to council on Monday evening, one resident showed up to oppose the plan’s adoption. Ward 5 resident James Epp stepped up to the podium during the community comments segment of the evening to express concern that there appeared to be no provision in the plan to consult with the local school board.

“The problematic fact that has occurred is that at least with my interpretation of the Planning Act, no one has caught — even after I reported this toward the correct destination — no one has caught a missing item in the city plan,” Epp said. “Under Section 44 of the City Plan, there are requirements and standards that have to be met with regards to consultation with school boards. It has to do with current and anticipated needs of buildings.”

Epp further said that there are local requirements for projections in terms of dwelling units for the number of children requiring schooling. He suggested that there had not been enough consultation with the school division about these standards, and called upon the council to “consider these facts” before adopting the City Plan.

In his comments to council, Nickel said that following the second reading of the Brandon City Plan bylaw, administration sent the plan to the province, and the Provincial Municipal Relations minister approved the plan and sent it back to council for third reading.

“There were not further changes made, and the reason for that is we spent four years of engagement with the community and different groups, including provincial departments, on their specific interests around the City Plan,” Nickel said. “That includes local groups such as the Brandon School Division, which we’re doing ongoing engagement with, including our growth projections, which is the growth strategy, which is attachment A to the City Plan.”

Nickel added that this information is provided to the Brandon School Division, and that the city conducts updates with division staff throughout the year to ensure their projections align with municipal projections.

In response, Coun. Bruce Luebke (Ward 6) said he would be voting in favour of the Brandon City Plan, even though he had some reservations about certain aspects of it.

“I think probably if you asked all of us, there’d be probably some portion of this that we maybe don’t agree with, or have some questions about, or maybe think we could do something different than what’s in this plan,” Luebke said. “But overall, I think it’s satisfactory to what we’re trying to do, and we also know that we’re not bound by it in any sense if circumstances change.”

Council ratified the Brandon City Plan, with only Coun. Shawn Berry (Ward 7) and Coun. Greg Hildebrand (Ward 5) opposed.

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