If there is one thing that past Councils may have been negligent in, it has been in the area of planning for the future.
Granted efforts such as building the Gallagher Centre, water treatment plant and the new Fire Hall do look to the future they are not exactly as a result of a long-term plan.
The old fire hall was a step away from completely obsolete, and so a new facility was almost forced.The water treatment plant is much the same. Provincial regulations changed to the point the old facility could no longer meet the standards. The result, the City was nearly forced into the construction.
What is needed is more of a plan, which details the way the City of Yorkton will deal with growth moving forward.
When the City initially started annexation of land from the rural municipalities of Orkney and Wallace they wanted literally hundreds of acres of land so as to ensure orderly growth moving forward.
Those annexation plans were later abandoned by the City, but a question which was never really answered was what visionary plan required such a large land acquisition? There was never a plan unveiled which detailed which quarter sections were destined for industrial expansion, residential subdivisions and business sectors. Such details would have made the large annexation proposal more palatable.
There may now finally be some sort of a plan in terms of how the City can grow outward and co-exist with the two neighbouring RMs thanks to a Planning for Growth initiative.
The initiative is being pushed from the top down. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Enterprise Saskatchewan and Infrastructure Canada announced in June funding for a regional planning program for Saskatchewan and the three local municipalities are looking to take advantage of the program.
The Yorkton District Planning Commission has identified that new Development Plans and Zoning Bylaws for the Planning District would be an appropriate way to utilize funding resources available through the program.
If the three municipalities can create an agreed to framework for development it can allay the fears of the City that their rural counterparts will do a mishmash of development hamstringing Yorkton's ability to grow outward in the future.
Conversely, strong Planning District bylaws will allow the RMs to have greater security that decisions it makes will not be roadblocked by the City, or lost to the City through annexation, at least in the short-to-mid-term.
A plan should work for all three municipalities, and still allow for industrial, business and residential growth in an orderly fashion.
It's a process that is overdue, and much needed.
