The portion of land bought by the City of Melfort is on the north side of Highway 41, across from the Melfort Campground.(Mat Barrett/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Melfort Buys Land

City of Melfort buys land; plans for development

Jun 18, 2019 | 5:00 PM

The City of Melfort has purchased land to help with growing the city in the coming years.

The 72 acre plot of land is located on the north side of Highway 41, across from the Melfort Campground. The parcel also includes much of Hodgins Dr. and the City owns the adjacent land.

Mayor Rick Lang said the purchase was a nice addition for the city.

“The significance to the City of Melfort is that a portion of that land offers highway frontage, which we are short on as a community,” Lang said. “So, this gives us another avenue to develop and promote highway frontage businesses.”

There is still some questions as to what exactly could go there, but Lang, and the city’s director of development, planning, and community relations, Brent Lutz, both said there is the opportunity for both residential, and commercial properties there in the future.

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“It’s located along a busy highway corridor and certainly we see that there would probably be some future interest for highway commercial there,” Lutz told northeastNOW. “There’s also industrial development in the area, and the city is in need of more service industrial land.”

The need for more service industrial land came after the city sold some land on Hamilton Ave, on the opposite corner of the city.

Lutz said it could take a while for development to really get going in the area.

“We’ve got lots of ideas,” he said. “But we do not necessarily have any projects that are on the table at the moment. This is a real strategic move on the part of the city. We believe the projects that might develop there are going to be based on opportunities as they arise, and it may take a decade or more to fully realize development there.”

As for right now, the city does plan to do a little bit of work in the area including grading, and subdividing. The cost of the parcel of land was not shared by the City of Melfort. The purchase does not come out of the operating budget, but is funded through the Capital Land Development Plan and costs are recovered through the future sale of land.

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mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6