Council for the Rural Municipality of Hanover has denied a request for a shipping container to be placed on a residential property south of Mitchell.
According to Hanover Permit Administrator Amos Wiebe, the applicant has purchased a site along Prairie Road with the intent of building a house on it at some point in the future. The date of construction is not certain.
Wiebe says the applicant would like to place a shipping container on the parcel to store firewood he intends to cut while clearing the land. The shipping container would also aid in the storage of materials for the building of a house. For the shipping container to be allowed, a variance order was requested by the applicant.
A public hearing was held last Council meeting. Since there is no principal residence on the parcel at this time, a variance is required to permit an accessory structure on the site. Wiebe told Council that Administration does not have any concerns with this application.
At the public hearing, a neighbour spoke out, voicing opposition to the application. His concern is that a shipping container will occupy space on that property before a house is ever built. He also noted that those residential properties are not intended to be storage sites.
Councillor Ed Penner told the rest of Council that his concern is that this request is open-ended. He says it could be 10 to 20 years that this shipping container sits on that property before a house is ever built.
Councillor Brian Esau then made a motion to deny the application on the basis that the timeline was open-ended. Council was unanimous in denying the application.
Following the meeting, Hanover Reeve Jim Funk said the deciding factor among Council was the fact that there was no end date.
"Shipping containers are allowed," says Funk. "We would just like to see a house on the property before the container itself."
Funk says the applicant indicated he intended to build a house but did not know when that would happen. Following Council's decision, Funk thanked the applicant for being transparent and admitting that he has no timeline for construction.
"The fact that he did not know when he would like to build, that was a huge concern for Council," says Funk. "Because then you have a shipping container on there, they can be somewhat unsightly."