North Battleford city council bowed to public pressure Tuesday night and reversed an earlier council decision to turn down rezoning of the Wilson and Zehner funeral chapel location into doctors' offices.
Instead, they approved the discretionary use application by SpesMed Properties Corp., a corporation of doctors acquiring 2591-99th St., to rezone the location. The vote was unanimous at Tuesday's meeting.
"The people of the community have spoken," said Mayor Ian Hamilton during the meeting.
The initial decision to turn down SpesMed's discretionary use application had been made during an April 25 council meeting. SpesMed had been looking for space for up to nine doctors and had settled on the funeral home property as an ideal location. The problem was that the funeral home is located in a C3 commercial zone where doctors' offices were not a permitted use.
SpesMed tried to convince council to apply discretionary use powers to allow for the rezoning at that location to allow for medical offices, but were turned down by a 4-3 council vote.
Since then, the doctors have received support from numerous letter-writers to both the city and to the Regional Optimist. Numerous SpesMed supporters were in attendance in a crowded gallery at Tuesday's meeting to lend their support to the application. Also lending support was the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce. President Scott Campbell appeared before council to inform them the Chamber board of directors voted to support SpesMed's discretionary use application at a board meeting May 17.
One of the issues that led to council's earlier decision to turn down SpesMed was concern that allowing the application would lead to more businesses seeking discretionary use to locate their businesses anywhere they wanted. It was feared this might undermine the zoning bylaw process and put a crimp into civic planning.
Mayor Hamilton cast one of the four votes to turn down SpesMed's application at the April 25 meeting. He told reporters Thursday he was concerned using council's discretionary use power would set a precedent "for other business transactions and property transactions."
"To utilize discretionary use could be setting some precedents for future areas where in any other zoned area for other proponents to come by and request discretionary powers be utilized," Hamilton said of his earlier vote.
As well, he said it was thought there was an opportunity to move them to the downtown area as part of downtown revitalization, where medical clinics are a permitted use in the C1 zone.
The City had been working diligently on a downtown revitalization plan. which has residents' support, said Hamilton.
But Hamilton changed his vote to support the rezoning application, citing the belief of many residents that application would be an exception to the zoning rules and would not be the norm in the future.
"The residents of North Battleford spoke very clearly: they thought this was a one-off and thought they could defend this in the future as a one-off," said Hamilton.
"Council very clearly heard the messages."
Dr. Malcolm Retief, president of SpesMed Properties Corp., urged council to reverse its decision in a presentation at the start of the meeting.
"Our problem at the moment is we have to relocate because the place we use at the moment is getting too small," said Retief.
He added the doctors "would like to stay together."
"We have been looking around and found a place that we found ideal," he said of the funeral home location. Among other things, Retief said the location has wheelchair access and was all on one level, and had plenty of parking. Also, he added, they have money to be able to invest in it.
Retief said the location would allow the specialist doctors to be able to stay together and work together in the Battlefords, saying it would be in the interests of both themselves and the patients they serve.
Chamber of Commerce president Scott Campbell spoke in support of the doctors' application, saying "this goes to a bigger issue of our community and what this will do for business in our community in the future."
In offering the Chamber's support for the zoning application Campbell stated in a May 18 letter submitted to the City that, "doctors and key medical personnel are important to the success and future development of any community."
"In the absence of an approved downtown business attraction package as part of the downtown revitalization project, and lack of suitable properties available in the short term, we are prepared to recommend to mayor and council that you reconsider your decision, should the doctors make overtures in this regard," his letter stated.
Two resolutions were up for votes at the meeting. One resolution allowed notice to be waived in order to reconsider the discretionary land use application immediately, and that was carried unanimously.
The second was to approve the discretionary land use application for 2591 - 99th St.
Councillor Don Buglas proposed an amendment to that resolution, adding the words "conditional that SpesMed Properties Corp. acquire the property at 2591- 99th Street from 603961 Saskatchewan Ltd. with a deadline date for the purchase acceptance of Thursday, June 30, 2011."
The amendment was meant to ensure the discretionary use approval applied only to SpesMed's particular application and "doesn't leave it wide open" for anyone else who comes along, Buglas explained. Even though Councillor Trent Houk questioned the need for an amendment setting a deadline date, both the amending motion and the discretionary use application passed unanimously.
