City hall is calling on the provincial government to act as more of an intermediary for issues involving cottage subdivisions and other unorganized areas.
It’s one of three resolutions Flin Flon city council has brought to the Association of Manitoba Municipalities (AMM), a provincial lobby group.
“The problem is the unorganized areas don’t have an official status of any sort, so there needs to be someone that you can deal with when issues do arise,” said Mayor Cal Huntley, “and that’s what we’re lobbying for, is that there’s a recognition that there’s an official body that you can actually go to.”
Huntley said it’s hard to deal with unorganized areas in an “official capacity,” adding that this has been identified as a concern that extends far beyond Flin Flon.
He said council’s resolution urges the province to “formally take a stand on how you deal with those issues, whatever the issues may be.”
Asked what those issues might include, Coun. Ken Pawlachuk gave fire protection as an example.
Some local cabin owners want the city to revive fire protection for cottage areas, a service it revoked in 2013 when the two sides could not agree on a fee. Beyond that disagreement were questions as to how a fire protection fee could be enforced given that the cottagers live in an unorganized area.
Council also put forth a resolution to AMM calling on the province to speed up the process of transferring Crown land to municipalities, and to make the procedure less costly.
“When you need a piece of property, it takes an enormous amount of time to get it and it shouldn’t take that long to get it,” Huntley said.
He gave the example of the former armoury building, which the city eventually acquired from government.
Huntley said opportunities for development can be lost if land is not transferred quickly enough.
He added that the government is aware of the problem and that one bureaucrat has pledged to work toward speeding up the process.
The resolution further calls on the province to reduce the cost of transferring land to municipalities since the money is, as chief administrative officer Mark Kolt put it, going from “one taxpayer-funded body to another taxpayer-funded body.”
Council put forth a third and final resolution asking the province to let municipalities charge a base property tax – a battle various Flin Flon city councils have waged for well over a decade.
Council’s argument is that while high-end homes should be charged higher taxes than low-end homes, the disparity has become too great and a base tax would bring more fairness.
Council introduced the three resolutions at the recent AMM northern meeting in Snow Lake. The resolutions will be voted on at the AMM annual general meeting in Winnipeg later this year.
