The City of Weyburn put a revised off-site development levy in place in 2018, after roughly a year of discussions. At Monday’s city council meeting, the bylaw was before them as a local business owner was requesting a waiver of the levy.

The proposed doggy daycare on Queen Street was facing a $1500 development levy, as the business would see a substantial increase in water usage at the address over the previous years. The report on whether the levy should be applied was based on the wording of the bylaw which states a substantial difference would result in the levy needing to be applied.

Councillors found themselves faced with the choice of waiving the fee or forcing the new business to have to pay the levy. They voted unanimously to approve the waiver request.

“That building’s been vacant for a number of years so there really hasn’t been any water use, so any water use makes an increase that’s excessive, so we feel pretty comfortable for exempting this one from the development levy bylaw,” explained Councillor Jeff Richards after the meeting.

The discussion on whether to waive the fee or not had some of the councillors examining the work they had done last year in getting the bylaw passed by council.

Councillor Dick Michel asked if the plan was now back to square one, or if they would need to re-examine the wording of the bylaw itself. His sentiments were echoed by other councillors, but they came back to the specific language they used in the drafting of the bylaw, which stated excessive water usage.

The property in question had regular water usage of 150 cubic metres a year before becoming vacant. While there isn’t an estimate on the amount of usage the doggy daycare will require, councillors found themselves talking about what excessive really was, with the example of the transition from an office to a car wash being used.

In the end, the councillors recognized the situation was a unique one and voted to waive the fee, noting the rules were followed to the letter by the administration, however, this was a peculiar situation.