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Issue 35
SERVING THE ENERGY CITY FOR 113 YEARS
www.estevanmercury.ca
Wed., Jan. 13, 2016 Mailing No. 10769
Bruins Clip Weyburn’s Wings The Estevan Westmoreland peewee AA Bruins skated to a 5-1 win over the rival Weyburn Youngfellow Wings at Affinity Place on Sunday. Solid defence from the likes of Turner McMillen (17) and Cade Bendtsen (7), seen here clearing a puck from Layne Gilroy’s crease, helped the Bruins (10-7-2) earn the win. Photo by Wanda Harron.
Police calls for service decline by 10 per cent
Permit numbers plunged in 2015 Building activity in the Estevan area was at its lowest level in years, according to the year-end building permit report issued by the City of Estevan. There were 75 permits worth a little more than $11 million last year, compared with 157 permits worth $34.9 million in 2014. The dwindling permit numbers weren’t a surprise, thanks to the slowdown in the local economy that left people leery about investing in building projects. “Obviously we knew it was going to be a slower year, given the local economic conditions, so it wasn’t totally unexpected to see what we did in terms of permit numbers and valuations,” said land development services manager Rob Denys. Denys expected about $15 million in building activity last year, so the final figure was lower than expected. In recent years, Estevan has usually eclipsed the 100 permit mark,
and it has surpassed $40 million in value on a number of occasions. The numbers for 2015 were the lowest for Estevan since 2007. The bulk of the building activity in 2015 was also for lower-value categories. Thirty miscellaneous permits worth $787,132 were issued. Another 18 permits were issued for garages; they had a value of $498,589.61. As for the other categories, seven single-family residential permits were approved, with a total value of a little more than $2 million; four multi-family permits for more than $2.8 million were issued; one secondary suite for $50,394 was approved; six commercial permits for $1.8 million were granted; four industrial permits for $551,200 were issued; and six institutional permits worth nearly $2.5 million were approved. The total number of new housing units created by the permits was 23, which was a significant decline
from the 108 new units for 2014. The single-family residential category appeared to suffer the biggest losses. The seven permits represented just a fraction of the activity seen in 2014, when 73 permits worth more than $9.9 million were granted. Denys expects 2016 will result in a similar number of building permits as last year, but that will be dependent on the local economy. “Obviously businesses are being a lot more cautious, and as far as new building investment, it’s really hard to say what will happen, because it’s generated by the local economic conditions,” said Denys, adding that new residential construction was very robust for a number of years. Based on his conversations with developers, there is still some willingness to invest in commercial properties, retail services and retrofitting existing commercial buildings, so Denys expects there could be an uptick in that category in 2016.
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While the Estevan Police Service (EPS) encountered a number of high-profile calls that grabbed the public’s attention last year, the police did experience an overall decline in the number of calls for service. The police had 7,877 calls last year, which was down almost 10 per cent from the 8,731 they received the year before. “I’m not surprised,” police Chief Paul Ladouceur told the Mercury. “We’ve noticed a decrease, obviously, in some of the activity in the city. When we look at the numbers, as the population decreases a little bit, and a lot of the people who were … transients have moved on … that’s going to have an impact.” Still, there are increases in some crime categories that are a cause for concern. Among the major categories, there were 163 crimes against a person, compared with 152 in 2014. There were 29 sexual crimes, 118 assaults, 14 assaults causing bodily harm and two robberies. Assaults saw the biggest increase, as there were 106 in 2014, which Ladouceur finds troubling. The other categories remained the same or had little change. Ladouceur ⇢ A2
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