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This article was published 19/3/2018 (917 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A commercial development plan for the corridor that links Morden and Winkler could bring the two cities closer to a future amalgamation forming Manitoba’s third-largest city.

The 10-kilometre stretch is in the RM of Stanley which, in consultation with the two cities, has drafted a plan to facilitate commercial expansion.

"It’s probably the highest-traffic road in Manitoba outside of No. 1 Highway," Stanley Reeve Morris Olafson said. "It’s ugly there. There are huge traffic counts here going back and forth."

Municipal officials have been working on the development plan for a couple of years. It sets out parameters for growth within the corridor that encompasses parts of Highway 14 and Highway 3.

There are about 40 businesses along the corridor, including the Access Credit Union head office, a furniture manufacturer and dealerships for five major farm machinery companies.

Olafson estimated there is space for another 100 commercial buildings at least and many people believe it can hold many more. The cities of Winkler and Morden will ultimately look like one big city once the corridor fills in.

"It will all fill up. It’s just a matter of time," Olafson said. Two or three businesses are in the process of moving in, including a cement manufacturer, and an agricultural drain-tiling company with an office complex on the same site.

"It doesn’t take long here and another couple go up," Olafson said.

The Boundary Trails Hospital is about midpoint in the corridor.

"The concept (in the development plan) is for anything around the hospital to be service-related in regards to the hospital," Olafson said. For example, the respite centre, Katie’s Cottage, is next door to the hospital. It’s a place for families of hospital patients, named after Kaitlyn Reimer, who died of cancer at the age of 15 in 2012.

"Beyond that, it will be light commercial, mostly agriculture-related, with some office spaces too," Olafson said. Residential development would not be allowed in the corridor.

The corridor could include some retail, but the RM is only thinking agricultural retail at this point. Stanley doesn’t foresee a Canadian Tire or Costco setting up. That would be costly with traffic lights priced at $1 million, and another $1 million for turning lanes, he said. However, the RM will construct gravel service roads where necessary.

The RM of Stanley stands to gain revenue through property taxes from commercial development. "Sure, every building that goes up pays taxes. If you don’t have the growth, you get stagnant," Olafson said.

It will help keep residential taxes down. "If we get more taxes from new businesses, then we don’t have to raise the taxes for everyone else," he said.

While Morden and Winkler don’t stand to gain directly, the corridor in the RM of Stanley will require services such as water and wastewater disposal, Winkler Mayor Martin Harder said. It hasn’t been determined whether one city or the other will supply those services, or whether they both will end.

Morden and Winkler already share several services, prompting speculation of a future amalgamation.

Morden Mayor Ken Wiebe agreed Morden and Winkler will look like one city once the corridor fills in, but that may take 25 years.

"The development has slowed. In 2008, it was booming like crazy. We’re still going good, but that’s a lot of territory to fill in." Wiebe said there is a six-kilometre stretch on which one side of the highway has only a few buildings.

However, Wiebe doesn’t deny that Winkler, Morden and the corridor could one day form a relatively large metropolis in the Pembina Valley. They are among Manitoba’s fastest-growing-communities with a combined population closing in on 25,000. "With the right political will, it could happen," Wiebe said.

Third and final reading of the development plan was to have taken place last week, but Morden backed off on a procedural matter. That issue has been resolved and the plan should pass by early April, officials said.

The province must give final approval to the plan. It has already seen a draft of the development plan and had no complaints. Provincial approval should come within a month, Olafson said.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca