Anthony Andre, Planning Coordinator with the City of Humboldt, reported to council on Jan. 8 regarding a discretionary use application currently before council.
Alexander Calkins submitted the application to purchase and build a medical marijuana grow operation on the 1700 block of 3rd Avenue, which is currently owned by the city.
All landowners with a 75 meter radius of the property have been notified and residents are welcome to attend a public meeting on Feb. 12.
At the time of the meeting, council was given the option whether to go forward with the application or stop the application.
They have agreed to continue with the application process with the public welcome to bring their questions or concerns to the public meeting.
Councillors had many questions with Andre willing to look into them before the public hearing. Calkins will be attending the meeting as well.
Andre says there are several medical marijuana grow operations in the province and he will be researching the potential benefits and problems of having an operation in the community.
This is Calkins first operation, says Andre, and considering how medical marijuana grow operations are listed in Humboldt’s zoning bylaws he decided to apply for an operation in Humboldt.
Not a lot of communities have marijuana operations listed in their zoning bylaws, he says.
Councillors were concerned about building regulations and the impacts recreational marijuana regulations at this time, which Andre will be looking into.
Work is complete on the 14th Street paving project and Humboldt city council got an update during the council meeting.
Members of 14th street were required to pay the total cost of the project until local improvement bylaws, which was reported at $396,904 by City Clerk, Sandra Pauli.
As reported in the Humboldt Journal on June 28, delegates from 14th Street attended council, both to give their approval and their objections to the project, as well as a difference in cost between residents.
It was still decided to go forward with the project since petitions to stop the paving were not successful.
Jim Moore spoke at the June 26 meeting saying that residents have been dealing with dust and curbside appeal issues on their property and would have continued dealing with said issues until the project was completed.
The majority of residents were willing to pay for the project in order to improve the air quality and visual esthetics of their property.
At the time of the Jan. 8 council meeting, 55 per cent of residents paid their portion of the fee to have the street paved which totals $214,160.
The city will pay the remaining $182,744 at this time from the city’s operating funds but will be reclaiming funds through adding the amount owing on their tax account for the next seven years starting in 2018.
Council has also approved the buy back of land on the corner of 101st Street and 4th Avenue. The land was originally purchase by the Riverwood Development Corporation to be developed into a 36 unit, three story apartment building.
No infrastructure or installation design has been completed so council authorized administration to negotiate the purchase of the land original priced of $10,000.
Work continues on the 2018 budget with City Manager Joe Day reporting to council that department numbers and high end costs are being nailed down.
It will take another couple weeks to prepare the documentation and double and triple the numbers, says Day, but the preliminary budget document should be ready for distribution at the Jan. 22 council meeting.
Day recommends that council have their budget meeting before the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association Convention Feb. 4-7 in Regina.
Budget meetings have been scheduled for Jan. 29-30 and are open to the public.
Council approves purchase of new rescue unit
Humboldt and District Fire Chief, Mike Kwasnica, was in attendance of the Jan. 8 council meeting to discuss the purchase of a new rescue vehicle.
Kwasnica says the current unit is too small for the needs of the department with no water and a smaller cab.
“We’re over capacity of every storage compartment that we have on it.”
The Humboldt Fire Department has been on the look out for a new vehicle for the last three years, says Kwasnica.
The plan was to tender a vehicle through manufacturing companies to build one but Kwasnica says they have been contacted about a unit that will fit their needs at a cheaper cost.
The 2011 Rosenbauer heavy rescue unit has a 30 hour pump, a compressed air foam, is a considerably larger unit, and is currently under 16,000 km and Kwasnica says there is the possibility of purchasing it for between $375,000-$400,000.
The unit is from an oil company in Fort McMurray that just never used it, says Kwasnica.
It is what they are looking for with a few extras that the department wanted but would not have been able to afford at the current budget, he says.
Kwasnica will be going down to look at the unit before any purchase is made. The current 2001 unit used by the Humboldt Fire Department has been assessed at $30,000.
The budgeted cost was going to be $500,000 for a new unit, says Kwasnica. But the final cost will be split between the City of Humboldt and the Humboldt and District Fire Protection Association. Kwasnica reported to council that the city’s $200,000 portion of the cost can be funded through the Fire Fleet Reserve, which is sitting at $158,190 at the end of 2017 and normally receives an annual $50,000 contribution from yearly budgets, including the 2018 budget that is currently in progress.
Council approved the $200,000 expenditure for a new rescue vehicle, but City Manager Joe Day said during the council meeting that at this time they have not approved the purchase of the specific vehicle Kwasnica brought to the council meeting but just the use of the $200,000.
