5 Winnipeg-area municipalities oppose regional planning framework

Five Winnipeg-area municipalities are protesting what their leaders describe as a "forced involvement" in a regional planning process they say will increase the cost and complexity of their governments and deprive them of their ability to make their own land-use decisions.

The City of Selkirk, the Town of Niverville and the rural municipalities of St. Andrews, East St. Paul and Headingley are all expressing various degrees of opposition to Plan 20-50, a regional planning framework for Winnipeg and 17 surrounding municipalities.

The plan, ordered up by Brian Pallister's former PC government, was developed by a provincially appointed body called the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region and is in the midst of a public hearing process.

Five of the municipalities that would be subject to the plan are either requesting changes or wish to be excluded from it altogether.

Selkirk chief administrative officer Duane Nicol, who has expressed opposition to the regional planning process since the Pallister government initially proposed it in 2019, said the province has effectively created a new level of municipal government with the power to force municipalities to amend their own land-use frameworks to conform to the regional framework.

"We're seeing the increase in cost, the increasing red tape and the disconnect between the decisions being made and the actual on-the-ground lived experience of the communities and the residents that have to live with these decisions," Nicol said Friday in an interview.

He noted Selkirk is not part of the Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area, a statistical entity that includes the Manitoba capital and neighbouring jurisdictions where more than half the adult population works or goes to school in Winnipeg.

Stonewall, Dunnotar, St. Andrews, Rockwood and Cartier are also not part of the Winnipeg CMA but are subject to Plan 20-50.

"Our opposition to the creation of the capital planning region is just the expansive powers that are provided and the fact that it's built on absolutely no good social and economic data."

Nicol said Selkirk wants out of the plan. Niverville said in a statement posted to its website its council won't support the plan and asked Wab Kinew's NDP government to convene a meeting of all 18 affected municipalities — or repeal the legislation.

Headingley said in a statement of its own it won't support the plan out of a concern it could lose its semi-rural character. East St. Paul described the plan in a statement as being so vague it "poses a risk of misinterpretation and inconsistent application across municipalities, potentially undermining the very cohesion the plan seeks to establish."

St. Andrews, meanwhile, supports a regional planning framework — but not this plan, as it's written.

"Local bylaws, policies and procedures have to be consistent with the plan," St. Andrews chief administrative officer Brent Olynyk said in an interview.

"There's going to be a lot of costs to get RM of Saint Andrews in line with the plan."

The plan itself calls for regional co-ordination when it comes to developing roads, expanding transit service and co-ordinating the likes of wastewater treatment or emergency services. Like most planning frameworks, it makes few specific recommendations.

Jennifer Freeman, the executive director of the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region, said the intention of Plan 20-50 is to end the patchwork of rules and regulations among neighbouring municipalities, which sometimes leads to conflict between municipal governments.

"We were seeing a lot of duplication which is causing fragmentation across the the region. So plan 20-50 will will help align the municipalities so that they can work together," Freeman said Thursday in an interview.

She claimed large employers have passed by the Winnipeg region due to the absence of co-ordination but declined to name the companies in question.

Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said he supports the plan, even if it requires amendments.

"A co-ordinated plan is essential if we want to compete effectively with other capital regions, such as Minneapolis-St. Paul, which has had one in place for years," Gillingham said Friday in a statement.

"Companies considering Manitoba as a location have told us that having a unified approach among the province, RMs, and the city is important for their investment decisions. We are currently lagging behind other regions, and without a comprehensive regional plan and a commitment to collaboration, we will continue to fall further behind."

Selkirk CAO Nicol said the province could have co-ordinated planning regimes across the capital region without creating a Winnipeg Metropolitan Region with the power to expropriate land and impose a planning framework. The minister of municipal relations signs off on every municipal planning framework, he said.

Nicol and Olynyk also said they wished to distance their opposition to Plan 20-50 from concerns raised about the plan on social media, where posts claim the plan would result in the creation of toll roads into Winnipeg, confine people to their neighbourhoods or deprive them of the use of wells on their properties.

"Some of the feedback that's coming from residents and that is quite frankly right out there," Olynyk said.

"Sometimes they're being mixed in with things that aren't in the plan and that will make it very difficult to have a rational conversation about some of the details," Nicol said.

Freeman blamed the misinformation about the plan on social media extrapolations, noting a call for expanded transit service has been cited as evidence of a plot to regulate personal vehicles out of existence.

"It's not about taking away people's cars or forcing them to take the bus, but it is about planning for connectivity so that people who do take the bus can have more options," she said.

Freeman also said social media has driven up interest in public hearings about Plan 20-50. She said she expected 40 people to attend a hearing in Winnipeg that attracted 150 delegates.

A hearing slated for Niverville last week had to be postponed after 600 people showed up, creating a potential fire-code violation situation for the venue, she said.

Freeman said the initial hope was to bring an amended plan before Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Ian Bushie in January. That timeline, she said, is now in question.

The NDP government deferred comment until Tuesday.