WEYBURN – The City of Weyburn is hoping to encourage the construction or renovations of homes to help spur the local economy, with a revised Weyburn Builds program, and a new show home incentive program.
The details of the program were laid out by Patrick Grunert, city building official, who noted an extensive review was done on the Weyburn Builds program to update it. Under this program, new houses or RTMs moved in to a residential lot will receive a reduction in property taxes of 75 per cent for three years.
There are also grants for major renovations and additions to existing houses or mobiles homes moved in, and the grant is based on the approved construction value.
The grant is $50 per $1,000 of construction value, with a maximum total grant of $1,000.
During the review, other municipalities with similar programs were surveyed, and while most communities have an incentive program for new development, Weyburn is the only one to provide an incentive for renovations at the residential level.
For new construction, the focus is encourage new development on vacant properties, or properties that became vacant through demolition.
A condition of the Weyburn Builds program is that there needs to be at least 50 per cent local content, whether materials or labour, trades or construction.
For renovations, the program encourages major renos to exteriors of aging houses in the mature infill areas of the city.
The new show home incentive program was developed after a review of the Builds program showed the province’s major municipalities have such a program available.
The focus is again to have development on the vacant lots in the city, including the city’s own inventory, so the feeling was that this is an opportunity to initiate major economic growth that provides home builders and/or contractors with an avenue to market their product.
A show home must meet all applicable building codes and zoning requirements, cannot be occupied, with a completed exterior and interior, with grass or turf in the front yard and a finished driveway.
The show home must have a minimum of 1,000 square feet of area and an attached garage, and must be available for free viewing to the public, and staffed when viewed for a minimum of five hours a week.
Coun. Mel Van Betuw felt this was an excellent idea, but is of the opinion that a spec home would work better in Weyburn than just a show home. A spec home is built with the intention of being bought and moved into, while a show home is to display to people what a home builder will build on another location.
The incentive to builders and contractors is the show home is 100 per cent exempt from taxes for up to three years. If the home is a spec home and the new owners move in, the grant ends when the home is bought.
• In other council business, the 2024 asphalt program was approved by council, but with tenders coming in higher than budgeted, some aspects of the asphalt program were cut back to accommodate the bids.
Tenders came in from Genco Asphalt Inc. and Torrent Energy Services, and Genco was awarded the tenders for five of eight proposed projects.
The projects approved are for Railway Avenue between Fifth and Ninth Streets (with one block removed) for a price of $930,000; 13th Street between Hartney and Park Avenues, and a fog seal treatment at the intersection of 16th Street and First Avenue; a reduced program at the airport for a total of $166,494; and First Avenue, with a structural rebuild, new curbing and paving from Government Road to 13th Street, for a total of $1,830,995.
The First Avenue project is over budget of $662,760, which will be covered by a line of credit with the city.
