Brandon residents voice concerns about housing, tax hikes at open house for city's 30-year plan

A 30-year plan for one of Manitoba's biggest cities is facing two major hurdles — addressing housing and counteracting misinformation.

Brandon's 30-year plan looks at the long-term vision for the city, and is intended to guide growth over the coming decades for the city of roughly 54,000.

But they city's plan has met criticism from some residents about the infrastructure costs, mixed-use housing and overall maintenance. Some have also criticized its focus on urban design concepts that emphasize active transportation.

On Wednesday, more than 100 people attended an open house at the Keystone Centre's MNP Hall to question city staff about the plan, and the future of Brandon.

Sonikile Tembo, the city's principal planner, told CBC those conversations are essential, even if they are hard.

"People are providing feedback, which is exactly what you want," she said. "If we went through a process like this and, you know, it was quiet all the way through, we would know that we're missing something because people aren't engaged."

But it can be challenging talking about tomorrow's ideas when there are issues today, Tembo said. 

One of the key points in the plan is preparing for growth. Over the next three decades, the city's population is expected to grow to around 64,000, Tembo said — something the city will need to account for with different types of housing.

"Nationwide we have a housing crisis.… Supply is not meeting demand," she said. "We have a responsibility, really, to maybe sit down and understand what are the things that we have control over."

Since 2001, a total of 5,355 new dwelling units have been built — 20 per cent of which were detached homes, and the remainder a mix of housing like apartments, duplexes or row housing, the report says.

The plan emphasizes that a mix of housing types will be needed to support the changing demographics in the city, and should be developed in walkable areas.

Community concerns

Housing was one of the hot topics for residents at Wednesday's open house, along with tax hikes, infrastructure costs and city maintenance.

Longtime Brandon resident Maureen Munroe told CBC she has been following the different phases of the plan since public engagement started in early 2022.

"It's not an easy job, but we just try to put our input and see what we can do," Munroe said. "We can learn from each other."

She doesn't want to see all areas of the city become mixed residential-commercial zones — commercial involvement should be limited in residential neighbourhoods, she said.

The city should also work on boosting Brandon's reputation, she said. Actively pushing the message that it's the second-biggest city in the province could help with tourism and revenue, said Munroe.

Paul Spiropoulos, meanwhile, worries about how businesses will survive if property taxes continue to increase to meet development plans.

He said as a landlord, he was allowed to increase rents by three per cent this year — which doesn't feel fair when the city hiked property taxes by 9.4 per cent, he said.

"I find that harsh," Spiropoulos said. "I cannot obviously pass … [the property tax increase] on to my renters, so it's going to cost me out-of-pocket money."

He also questions how the city can leave citizens responsible for maintenance like sidewalk snow clearing while also increasing taxes. That suggests better revenue management is needed, he said.

Spiropoulos also thinks people won't use proposed bike lanes — a major part of active transportation in the plan — if they aren't maintained and are covered by snow much of the year. 

He also raised crime as an issue, saying bike thefts could further discourage people from using the lanes.

The Brandon Police Service told CBC from 2022 to 2023, bike thefts increased by 31 per cent.

Spiropoulos thinks crime is getting worse, saying his downtown business had two windows broken last summer — a $2,600 expense.

Those issues need to be tackled before the city presses forward with major infrastructure developments, he said.

Combating misinformation

Ryan Nickel, the director of the city's planning and buildings department, says there have been misunderstandings about the plan that have been hard to combat. 

Public engagement sessions like Wednesday's are a healthy way to talk about how the city can grow, he said.

"The key is to have a good understanding," he told CBC, so "if there is disagreement, at least we're disagreeing about something that we both understand."

There were some moments of tension at the open house, especially when the topic of walking and biking paths came up, leading city officials to warn people to be respectful of everyone present.

Last year, public engagement on the plan was paused after a meeting took an intense turn with concerns about the "15-minute city" urban design concept — which promotes the idea that communities should be designed to allow residents to access to their main daily needs within a 15-minute walk, bike ride or transit trip from their homes.

Some people claim the concept is an elaborate conspiracy intended to limit individual freedoms by restricting people to movement within barricaded sectors of a city.

Brandon's 30-year city plan emphasizes the need for ease of access to services through walking or biking, a concept similar to the 15-minute city idea.

Some residents opposed to that concept attended Wednesday's public meeting, but the conversation was not derailed this time.

Tembo says these conversations are part of city planning and education.

"Our role really is to empathize. Cost of living has gone up, potholes are horrible right now ... people are coming and they have these tensions already," Tembo said. "We're going to empathize ... but bring it back to the topic at hand."

The city plan will appear before Brandon council in about a month.