Council for the Rural Municipality of Ritchot is paving the way for much more housing to come to Ile des Chenes.

Mayor Chris Ewen says at a recent council meeting they approved a plan for about 67 multi-family units between the Old Highway 59 and Main Street on the north end of the community, and then about 16 multi-family units off Lamoureux Road in the southeast corner.

Ewen says these two developments alone could bring up to 300 additional residents to that community.

"This is a significant number," he says.

Both projects are still subject to a development agreement, but Ewen says his concern is that the infrastructure might not be able to keep up with this kind of growth. Specifically, Ewen says he is concerned about wastewater capacities. Ritchot is part of a group of municipalities in the southeast that is trying to get the necessary funding to construct a regional wastewater treatment plant.

"To be quite frank, from my understanding of our infrastructure in Ritchot, we're hitting very close to capacity with our wastewater," notes Ewen. "And if we don't find a solution quickly we're going to see a stalemate in growth and that will just absolutely hinder any potential future sustainability in Ritchot, be it industrial, commercial or residential builds."

Ewen says it is for that reason he voted against the larger of these two housing developments.

"But the Public Works department is going to look heavily into that and make sure that the engineers are keeping up to ensuring we do have that infrastructure capacity before anything is built," he says. "So a bit of concern for wastewater, but we're always on top of it, making sure that we can go ahead."

With regards to these two developments, Ewen says they are both geared towards adult living, located at opposite ends of Ile des Chenes. He notes they are trying to spread things out and not cluster everything to one area. In doing so, he says they are creating a diverse community of Ile des Chenes.