During meetings July 16 and Aug. 13, the Thompson Planning District approved a pair of land applications submitted by Thompson 2020.
The first request was to buy 130 acres of land near Ospwagan Lake, which the Thompson 2020 team plans on turning into seasonal camping grounds.*
The second application was to lease a 371-acre stretch of land just north of Paint Lake Provincial Park for the purpose of developing a cottage lot subdivision.*
After being approved by a majority of planning district members, both applications are currently awaiting approval from the province’s Crown Lands and Property Agency.
Even though Thompson 2020 is pleased with this latest development, assistant project manager Harold Smith said that they don’t know when they’ll get a response from the Manitoba government.
“It’s a lengthy process,” he said. “They have to check in with all the government departments and consolidate their response and I plan to follow up with them in the next month or so to try and see if I can get a timeline. But it typically takes six to nine months.”
While the members of Thompson 2020 are eager to move this process forward, Smith was quick to clarify that they’re going to pass this work off to the right private developer or co-operative when they finally get the green light from the province.
“Our objective is to get … some certainty in terms of the land being available and then what we’ll do is we will seek a developer to take over from there and we’ll do some sort of a public call to identify that developer.”
Both of these applications fall under Thompson 2020’s overarching goal of helping the community develop a more diverse, self-sustaining economy during financially turbulent times.
Ever since Vale announced drastic reductions of their operations in Thompson, as far back as 2010 city officials have proposed developing cottage lots and other plots of land for recreational activities in the hopes of attracting tourism dollars and retaining their current population.
Following their launch in June 2017, Thompson 2020 picked up this ball and ran with it, having identified through multiple surveys that having access to lakefront properties and cottage lots is one of the main reasons why residents stay in the north.
Smith also mentioned that Thompson 2020 is interested in developing lots for hobby farms near the cross country ski trails and more conventional estates near the Thompson Golf Course, both of which will require the amendment of local zoning by-laws.*
“Some people have potato farms, people have dog kennels, they’ve got horses, but it’s in a residential area so they build their home and they have this other use,” said Smith, giving examples of what these hobby farms lots could be used for. “We’ve heard for years that there’s a demand for … more of a rural agricultural, large-lot place to build a home.”
To find out more information about the Thompson 2020’s other goals and initiatives, please visit their website.
* A previous version of this story incorrectly identified that:
1) Thompson 2020 planned on developing land near Ospwagan Lake for the purpose of developping cottage lots and land north of Paint North for the purpose of devlopping seasonal camp grounds, when, in fact, these land development strategies were reversed.
2) the land near the Thompson Golf Course will be used for hobby farms, when Thompson 2020 is aiming to reserve that land for smaller estate lots.
The Thompson Citizen regrets these errors.
