Steinbach city council this week received an unusual request from a developer. Luke Wiebe asked the city for a grant to help demolish six old homes along First Street, west of Donald Avenue, to make way for a new multi-family development. Wiebe says the Manitoba Municipal Board has imposed a number of restrictions on the development which have made it a big financial risk to go ahead with the 72-unit project. He asked city council for a grant of $60,000 to help with demolition costs.

Deputy Mayor Michael Zwaagstra moved that council deny the grant.

"The City of Steinbach has a long time developer-pay policy. And the fact is, is that we expect developers to pay all the costs of the development. That includes demolition of old buildings, construction of new buildings and anything infrastructure that's needed and associated with that. If we were to go down the route of saying that we're going to pay a grant to a developer in order to help them with their costs, that opens up a precedent that we don't want to go down."

Councillor Jac Siemens agrees, although he sympathizes with the developer.

"I feel for them. The Municipal Board has imposed restrictions on them that the City of Steinbach did not. I'm very surprised that the Municipal Board would do that. I don't know that they've done that in the past. But, there is no bylaw currently in place to even allow the City of Steinbach to outright give a for-profit organization a grant of any kind. But my biggest concern is the idea of setting a precedent."

Siemens adds that if the city were to give such a grant, other developers would soon be lining up for equal treatment. He notes other developers have faced challenges in the past and have had to overcome them on their own.

City council was unanimous in turning down the request.

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