Council for the RM of Ste. Anne has voted in favour of setting up a planning, land use and development committee.

Reeve Paul Saindon says in the last five years, the municipality has seen a substantial increase in demand for subdivisions and property variances. He notes the goal for the committee is to review land use applications and come up with a set of clear recommendations for council on how to proceed with hopes of speeding up the process.

"In the past, I remember sitting in on council meetings all the way until 11 o'clock at night," notes Saindon, "quite often, discussing stuff that should have very well been determined way ahead of time and just brought in as a proposal and moved on."

He adds at that point, council will look at the information and make its decision. Saindon says the goal is to eliminate "unnecessary questions" during the discussion and speed up council meetings.

"In the last few years, land seems to have been a very lucrative option here as a far as subdividing and people are looking to capitalize on every piece of property they own so we have to be very careful on what is divided and where it's being divided. So a lot of this stuff is very necessary and yes there is a lot of demand for it."