Saskatoon Minute: Issue 125

Saskatoon Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Saskatoon politics

📅 This Week In Saskatoon: 📅

• Ken Wood, the former Chief Executive of the arena now known as SaskTel Centre, is leading a citizen campaign to force a referendum on Saskatoon's $1.2-billion Downtown Event and Entertainment District. Wood launched a website to register residents willing to sign a formal petition, which under provincial law would need valid signatures from 10% of the city's population, or 26,615 people according to the City, collected within 90 days of the first signature. A valid petition would require a referendum within nine months. Wood argues a public commitment of that size deserves the direct consent of Saskatoon taxpayers, and points to earlier votes on the location of SaskTel Centre in 1986 and a downtown casino proposal in 1994. Ward 6 Councillor Jasmin Parker and Ward 4 Councillor Troy Davies both said the wording of any referendum question would matter, with Davies arguing the real choice is between building new and renovating. The provincial government has said it would match federal contributions of up to one-third of the project's cost if Ottawa approves funding, and Wood says he will decide within a few weeks whether to proceed.
  
  
• Ward 5 Councillor Randy Donauer's motion to scrap the funding stream behind Saskatoon's most expensive public artwork was defeated 3-8 at the Governance and Priorities Committee on August 12th. The policy requires capital projects to which the City commits $5 million or more to spend up to 1% of the project budget on public art, to a maximum of $500,000. It paid for Modern Erratics, three imitation boulders made from recycled plastic that cost $297,490 out of the $37.5-million Material Recovery Centre budget at the landfill. Davies and Ward 9 Councillor Bev Dubois backed Donauer, with Dubois noting the money comes out of capital funding rather than the mill rate, so it competes with streets and sidewalks. Mayor Cynthia Block and the other seven Councillors voted against, though several criticized how the artwork was introduced to the public, and the Committee directed Administration to review the policy, improve communication about future works, and look at attracting private donors. Administration told the Committee that Modern Erratics is the only project to have used the capital art stream since the policy took effect in 2015. 
  
  
• A $93.4-million pipeline that carries treated sewage solids out of Saskatoon is caught in a dispute with the Rural Municipality of Corman Park, City officials told the Standing Policy Committee on Environment, Utilities and Corporate Services on August 4th. The 12-kilometer line replaces existing infrastructure running from the City's wastewater treatment plant to a handling facility in the RM, and has to be finished next year under the agreement that secured $31.7 million in federal funding, with the Province adding $10.7 million. Corman Park's Council passed a resolution in June setting conditions for the work, including a $1 million payment, upgrades to an affected road, an agreement to negotiate water and sewage services for RM land, and having Saskatoon and Martensville take on liability for the old pipes. Angela Gardiner, the City's General Manager of Utilities and Environment, said in her report that accepting those terms could limit Saskatoon's ability to grow, and that widening the road corridor from 20 meters to 30 meters alone would add about $825,000. The Committee directed officials to negotiate a reasonable agreement, and Gardiner says her staff will bring back options if the dispute is not settled by the fall. Corman Park is also weighing whether to leave the regional planning district it shares with Saskatoon, Martensville, Warman and Osler, a decision its Council postponed in June by six months.
  
  
• Saskatoon is moving to more than triple the distance smokers must stand from any doorway, window or air intake, expanding the buffer from 3 meters to 10 meters. The Standing Policy Committee on Planning, Development and Community Services approved the change unanimously on August 5th, and it now goes to City Council for a final vote at the end of the month, with the new rules taking effect on January 1st, 2027 if they pass. Mayor Block first raised the idea of tighter smoking limits last September, and Administration told the Committee the change would bring Saskatoon in line with Regina and Edmonton, which both use a 10-meter clearance. Of the three business improvement districts consulted, only Riversdale objected, and a City report acknowledges the wider buffer would turn most of Broadway and the Riversdale district into no-smoking areas. Randy Pshebylo, Executive Director of the Riversdale Business Improvement District, says he has not had a single complaint about smoking outside businesses in two decades, and questions how a larger buffer would be enforced when existing rules on blocked sidewalks are not. Saskatoon Police handle enforcement and receive one to three smoking complaints a year, issuing 15 to 25 tickets, usually near high schools.
  
  
• Saskatoon City Council has turned down two small infill housing projects this year, and the planning consultant behind one of them says the decisions are hard to square with the City's own push for density. Alan Wallace, a former City director of planning and development, asked Council in April to rezone a corner lot on 11th Street in Holiday Park for a six-unit building, a month after Council declined a similar six-unit rezoning on 108th Street in Sutherland. The City received 75 responses on the Holiday Park proposal, 69 of them opposed, with the local community association citing parking, traffic and neighbourhood character. Saskatoon changed its zoning rules to qualify for $41 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, allowing four-unit buildings on corner lots citywide and six-unit buildings near planned high-frequency bus routes. As of July 31st, the City was 254 units short of its 733-unit affordable housing target under that agreement and had added none of the 184 multi-unit dwellings it committed to build outside the transit area, against a December 31st deadline. 

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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