A vote Wednesday at Winnipeg City Hall on whether to allow hundreds of millions of dollars of residential development near Polo Park was laid over until the next council meeting after receiving a Hail Mary appeal from the Winnipeg Airport Authority late Tuesday.
Mall owners Cadillac Fairview and developer Shindico want to build nearly a dozen low and medium-rise buildings on Polo Park’s property.
The mixed-use project would take up about a third of the mall’s current parking lot.
The Winnipeg Airports Authority (WAA) says a mixed-use build that close to their property could lead to noise complaints, and threaten its 24/7 operation, having a big effect on the booming cargo business.
The WAA intends to add a third runway in the future — plans for that would see planes fly just 300 metres above the property, some of them at night.
However, Tuesday night, the WAA sent a letter to Coun. Janice Lukes, who is a proponent of the development, and copied all councillors and the mayor.
“Unfortunately, we have come to the conclusion that the current city process has not and will not allow for a proper, reasoned discussion on this critical issue,” wrote WAA CEO Barry Rempel in the letter.
“As a result, earlier this afternoon we exercised the option to take this issue to the Municipal Board, where it can receive the fulsome review and discussion it deserves.”
Read the letter in full:
Coun. Brian Mayes moved for the matter to be laid over, citing potential legal issues if council proceeded with the vote after the airport authority’s letter, which said it has the right to appeal the decision with the Manitoba Municipal Board in the name of the federal government.
“I think our legal department has not had sufficient time to review this,” Mayes said when putting the motion forward. “We don’t know if we can proceed quite frankly, we have to get our legal department to tell us if that was a valid and legally binding objection.”
The motion passed 11-4.
University of Winnipeg city planning expert Jino Distasio told 680 CJOB if this development was anywhere else in the city, it would be “a slam dunk.”
“This is the challenge, though, when you come up against land use conflicts and zoning conflicts and bylaws, it’s it’s really about how does this fit that area?
“And do we have the right levers in place to make the decision?”
Distasio said Winnipeg’s history of slow growth has suddenly come up against accelerated growth and said the city and province need “more adaptive planning tools to make these kinds of decisions that are fair and unbiased.”
He called the WAA’s letter “an interesting play.”
“I don’t know if the airport authority feels it will get a stronger voice at the municipal board … the hope is that anybody that reviews this, again, they review the facts.”
However, its unclear to Distasio what will occur next following the airport authority’s decision to bring the matter to the municipal board.
“Who has the ultimate authority to delegate a decision to the municipal board, is it the developer, is it the city, is it the community in this case? We have a complex situation here where we’ve got two competing authorities in the developer and the airport and the city all trying to negotiate something that Winnipeg has really addressed before,” Distasio said in a later interview Wednesday.
“It is actually quite unique, where you’ve got two types of development focuses pitted against each other.”
Meanwhile, Shindico’s head lawyer is confident the WAA does not have the authority to take the matter to the municipal board under the Winnipeg Charter.
“Only four types of entities can make that referral, the federal government, the provincial government, an adjacent municipality or an adjacent planning district,” lawyer Justin Zarnowsky said. “The Winnipeg Airport Authority is none of those things.”
“We hope that the city reviews their charter and decides to proceed with this because the objection isn’t valid. If they choose that they need time to do that, we think it’s unfortunate, it seems very clear to us that the airport authority doesn’t have this right,” he added.
The airport authority has repeatedly said it is not opposed to development in the area outright — but wants a proper study of noise to be conducted first before any developments proceed.
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