At the regular meeting of Barrhead County Council on Dec. 1, assembled council met with a delegation representing the Neerlandia Co-op’s interest in having a liquor store and discussed an amendment to Land-Use Bylaw No. 5-2010.
“In the afternoon, there was a public hearing for making a change to the land use by-law,” County Manager Mark Oberg said, adding that the store is located on what is designated agricultural land. “Ordinarily, having a restaurant or a hardware store on agricultural land is fine, but to do what the Co-op was planning, it doesn’t work for that kind of zoning.”
According to Oberg, the by-law’s amendment would allow the Co-op to build the liquor store once the zoning is changed to urban/commercial.
“Rezoning the parcel of land opens up the possibility of a liquor store at that location,” he said, adding that at the end of the day, council still has that decision to make.
“In our society, we have liquor stores everywhere,” Oberg said, adding that despite the public hearing, there was no feedback about the proposal from the community.
“We had one person, a board member from Neerlandia Co-op, who was present to answer any questions council had, but we did not receive any written comments or phone calls on this matter at all,” he said.
That by itself says a fair bit, Oberg said.
“It is not very likely that council will make a decision on whether the liquor store will go in or not before the end of 2015,” Oberg said, adding that all he could say was that council voted for changing the bylaw. “The only reason they would have to change the bylaw is to make this other service available, but that’s about all I can say on that.”
The reason for the rezoning procedure, Oberg said, was due to a historical precedent.
“In the past, years and years ago, council did not want to have liquor stores popping up all over the place so they made these zoning regulations that made it impossible to have a store like the one proposed in Neerlandia on agricultural land,” Oberg said.
“In our county, we have liquor stores in Campsie and at Connie May’s in Lac La Nonne,” he said, adding that if the proper steps are followed and county council ultimately votes in favour of the store, there could be a third location in Neerlandia as well.
