St Boniface Area | Winnipeg | Development

[pspeid]

From CBC news website today:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...ipeg-1.5951298

IMO good news.

One thing that struck me from the article was this: "The City of Winnipeg has been paying to maintain the properties since amalgamation" This was in 1971. Not an inconsiderable lump of change over that time.

[Only The Lonely..]

W

Originally Posted by pspeid

From CBC news website today:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manit...ipeg-1.5951298

IMO good news.

One thing that struck me from the article was this: "The City of Winnipeg has been paying to maintain the properties since amalgamation" This was in 1971. Not an inconsiderable lump of change over that time.

It was definitely a nail-biter of a meeting.

There were francophone protestors outside city hall.

After hours of discussion, Kevin Klein tabled a motion that the contentious issue be heard by all of City Council - a departure from the process set out at onset of the RFP competition.

City clerk, administration, and legal team all said that Klein's motion would be very 'unusual' / 'precedent-setting'and potentially expose the city to legal risk for botching the RFP.

Janice Lukes spoke in favour of the MB Possible project but ultimately voted with Klein. She felt the issue was important enough to be heard by all of City Council.

Cindy Gilroy and Vivian Santos voted to stick with the RFP process...creating a 2-2 tie in votes.... A majority vote was required to take the matter forward.... So the issue died on the docket.

The decision to sell the property is concluded in favour of the sale.

Matt Allard got heat for having a full decade to solve the problem and doing nothing about it until now.

[T'Cona]

Very good news indeed

[esquire]

Why didn't SFM pass the hat and gather up some money to buy the old city hall if it's that important?

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by esquire

Why didn't SFM pass the hat and gather up some money to buy the old city hall if it's that important?

Been wondering that too. It's funny how much it matters to people until someone says 'well pony up'. It's really that simple, come up with the cash for purchase and maintenance and she's all yours.

[Only The Lonely..]

There is a lot of sabre-rattling and an implied threat of court action to stop the project.

Personally, after seeing this, I think you would have to have rocks in your head to build anything in Old St.B. This will scare investors from the neighbourhood.

I'm reminded of when the Sals on the bridge was lampooned because it wasn't French enough.

The Franco Manitoban community would rather have kept the restaurant space on the Esplanade empty for the past decade than have a non-Francophone business in the space.

Taxpayers can pay to preserve their clubhouse though!

Hate to say it, but the Franco Manitoban community is what's holding that neighbourhood back.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

Been wondering that too. It's funny how much it matters to people until someone says 'well pony up'. It's really that simple, come up with the cash for purchase and maintenance and she's all yours.

Exactly. And it's not like it would have been some kind moonshot project for the SFM either. It's a big group with a lot of heavy hitters. They could have done it... the City was desperate to get the building off its hands.

[Only The Lonely..]

Originally Posted by esquire

Exactly. And it's not like it would have been some kind moonshot project for the SFM either. It's a big group with a lot of heavy hitters. They could have done it... the City was desperate to get the building off its hands.

It's an interesting thought exercise in what would you do if you were a Sim City mayor.

1.) The Old St.B City Hall and fire station have been empty for decades. Previous development schemes (2013) to turn the Firehall into a youth hostel have failed.

2.) MB Possible sees an opportunity to develop the vacant land behind the city hall for its constituents. The property meets their criteria of being well served by transit, centrally located, and in a safe neighbourhood. Other downtown sites were considered not safe, and other suburban greenfield sites were not well served by transit. Developers made a pitch to put this in Bridgwater Forest. So MB Possible settles on Old. St.Boniface. They apply and win the RFP.

3.) The Francophone community values the city hall as part of their heritage but does not pay market rent to maintain it. So the building crumbles over time. MB Possible has no desire to change or alter any aspect of the old town hall. Franco Manitoban groups using the city hall depend on having cheap rent (they are a non-profit). MB Possible is also a non-profit, they can't float another organization, so they would have to charge market rent to sustain the old St.B City Hall building.

4.) The cash-strapped city pays to keep multiple buildings on the St.B civic campus empty for purely sentimental reasons.

5.) Franco Manitoban community is ok with MB Possible to redevelop the land behind the city hall as long as the city keeps ownership of the town hall and they can continue to live there rent-free.

6.) The RFP is written as an all-or-nothing proposition. Changing the RFP to omit buildings would require a new RFP.

7.) MB Possible has a hard deadline to vacate their current office at HSC (their lease is up). Waiting another year for a new RFP to close would kill the project for them.

8.) St.Boniface City Councillor is elected by people in St.Boniface not folks on SSP, so he rallies to save his political future.

[trueviking]

The protestors appear to be protesting the idea that the groups in old city hall will no longer get free rent. If they want to stay in that building, the government, or whoever should support them so they can pay a landlord rent. Why would they get a free ride?

The news was framing it as if the building is being demolished. Lots of heritage buildings are privately owned. The government doesn't own the Cathedral.

[bomberjet]

Good to see this proposal wasn't kill.

Manitoba Possible is require to negotiate leases with the existing tenants in good faith. Has MP spoken publicly about all this?

The news article made it sound like the francophone community is framing this as a human rights violation. Any time you bring up human rights, that what you're doing. That's insane in this situation.

[pspeid]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Good to see this proposal wasn't kill.

Manitoba Possible is require to negotiate leases with the existing tenants in good faith. Has MP spoken publicly about all this?

The news article made it sound like the francophone community is framing this as a human rights violation. Any time you bring up human rights, that what you're doing. That's insane in this situation.

People often wonder why public opinion is so divided. When many form their opinion based on news articles that heavily skew towards one opinion without much balance or research into whether that opinion has much basis in fact, polarized public opinion seems to be the inevitable result. I know media outlets have huge pressures to produce content in a short amount of time, but personally I get tired reading "news" articles that aren't much more than "here's an issue; person A likes it, person B doesn't". Of course so many "consumers" of news seem happy with this kind of fluff, so I guess it's not surprising we get so much of it.

[Only The Lonely..]

In a weird roundabout way, MB Possible doesn't want to harm the old city hall and the Franco Manitoban society is ok with developing the underused land behind the building.

The city RFP is the problem, it's all or nothing. It's too far gone now to retool the RFP unless the city thinks it can do better than the MB Possible proposal.

The victim is Manitoba Possible, they responded to a public RFP, competed and have negotiated in good faith with the city.

A special interest group is applying pressure and causing the city to give thought to abandoning its own process.

A politician (Matt Allard) who is beholden to that group for his own political survival has decided to interfere.

Watching the city's own lawyers yesterday say that this was a terrible idea during the televised council meeting was illuminating.

We have also all lived through the Katz/Sheegl era of free-wheeling and dealing and now we have a very expensive police station as a result of not following a process for land transfer.

It wasn't that long ago that these lessons were learned.

[Only The Lonely..]

If this is how the city does business, nobody should do business with the City of Winnipeg. The process can't be trusted.

[bomberjet]

Point is the City does not want to continue paying maintenance costs on the building. They don't want to own it anymore. The community is saying they are supposed to keep it in perpetuity, in line with expectations from 1971. So what's the actual story?

I'm not sure what state the RFP is at. But in City RFP's they are under no obligation to do anything and can cancel it at anytime.

It also mentioned in that news thingy that Matt Allard has had 10 years to come up with something and hasn't found anything. Is he catching heat from the community, I would hope so. But they seem to love him, so maybe not.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Point is the City does not want to continue paying maintenance costs on the building. They don't want to own it anymore. The community is saying they are supposed to keep it in perpetuity, in line with expectations from 1971. So what's the actual story?

I'm not sure what state the RFP is at. But in City RFP's they are under no obligation to do anything and can cancel it at anytime.

It also mentioned in that news thingy that Matt Allard has had 10 years to come up with something and hasn't found anything. Is he catching heat from the community, I would hope so. But they seem to love him, so maybe not.

I don't think it has much to do with expectations from 71. Most people who are protesting don't remember the 90s, let alone the 70s. I think most of the story is this is an opportunity for idle(ish) community orgs to do something to validate their existence, as well as people finding yet another cause celebre to militate for. It's mostly busy work as far as I can tell, and a mostly false sense of indignation to claim brownie points from their peers.

[bomberjet]

^Agreed.

[trueviking]

demolition has begun at the intersection of des meurons and goulet....the big old white building being replaced with a six storey apartment building with ground floor commercial units.

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by trueviking

demolition has begun at the intersection of des meurons and goulet....the big old white building being replaced with a six storey apartment building with ground floor commercial units.

Yeah I noticed the fencing had gone up yesterday!

[plrh]

I would bet there is some big timber in that old barn. I hope Imrie's can salvage some of it.

[plrh]

Originally Posted by plrh

I would bet there is some big timber in that old barn. I hope Imrie's can salvage some of it.

Nope, no big timber. I drove by at lunch and the building is completely torn down and almost entirely hauled away. Didn't take long.