Rocanville holds community meeting to give updates, share new ideas for future growth
March 5, 2024, 11:54 am
Kelsey Selby
On Monday, February 26, Rocanville Economic Development Organization (REDO) hosted a community meeting at Nutrien Hall in Rocanville complete with coffee and homemade cookies.
Community members were asked to submit agenda items and a head table from important organizations and businesses in the area gave updates and information regarding their organization’s current situations
Despite the snowy and cold weather conditions, around 50 community members attended including RM residents, business owners and long-time town residents to participate in what turned out to be a productive discussion.
The head table included RM of Rocanville Reeve Melissa Ruhland, Kelsey Selby from the REDO board, Andrea Logan with Rocanville Recreation, Sgt. Damien Grouchy with the Moosomin RCMP, Jason Gerspacher from Nutrien, Jillian Byers from Dream Big Daycare, Nathan Bromm and Julia Roden from Rocanville School, and Rocanville Mayor Ron Reed.
Stan Langley led the meeting and started the discussion of the topic of housing in Rocanville.
Handouts were given out with surveys to get a clearer picture of what the residents and RM members feel Rocanville could use more of. Curious how REDO could better serve the area, one question asked, “which new businesses would you like to see in Rocanville?” The responses included a store selling household items, kids entertainment, plumbers, a bakery, another grocery store option, homemade healthy meals for seniors with a meal program, more short term rentals, and a craft store. Three people also responded that they were interested in starting up a business in Rocanville, but they face obstacles when it comes to financing and finding the space to start up.
The meeting kept a note of positivity, and the crowd was able to voice concerns, give suggestions and ask questions that could be answered by the representatives in attendance. One participant asked if Rocanville has ever looked at hiring an economic development officer who could also work together with Moosomin’s EDO.
Mayor Reed responded, “Is it a need? Yes, we have talked about it as far as an assistant position or a secondary position alongside the rec director. We have actually advertised for it, but we just didn’t find that right fit.”
Lack of housing has been a struggle for most communities and Rocanville is no different. Myrna Green of Rocanville voiced concern over the senior housing situation in Rocanville, stating that the town is losing seniors because there is no place for them. Green also suggested a board of people willing to invest or find funding to get the ball rolling on seniors housing.
“Maybe we should be looking at something like Moosomin has with Pipestone Villas and maybe we need to form a committee to see if we can take that further, just people that are interested in that because you’re going to get the seniors too,” Green said. “We’re losing and have quite a few seniors on the list to go to Moosomin because they don’t have anything here.”
Kevin Wojcik of Rocanville spoke up, asking the town if they had ever considered selling the empty lots in town for $1 with stipulations including a limited amount of time to build on the lot. Other communities in the area have done it this way as well. The town responded that they did offer a discounted price on the Cameron Crescent lots and were able to sell more that way, but they did need to recover some of their infrastructure and surveying costs. They also don’t own all the vacant lots in town, and the price of privately-owned lots is set by the owner.
Suggestions were also brought up to make the community more of a draw when driving through or to stay in town when working in the area. The town does have current plans to add murals to empty walls in town. Planting trees on Railway Avenue, a large event like a reunion, a nice camping area, and beautifying the town were all ideas given to improve Rocanville’s aesthetic.
Green added, “I think REDO could think in terms of some kind of a hook, and by that I mean some particular event that we could really focus on. Part of what I think we’d like to do is pull some people off the highways that make it interesting enough to come here.”
The potential for growth is there as Rocanville has a very large employer nearby, and are one of the closest communities to Nutrien. Jason Gerspacher with Nutrien mentioned that Nutrien also struggles bringing in and retaining employees because of their rural location and the lack of housing in the area.
“When we do our annual turnaround, that’s when we do our capital projects and big maintenance projects, there is a lot of people on contract work coming to the area and we struggle to find accommodations to house those people for that short period of time, so that’s definitely one of our challenges,” Gerspacher said.
Gerspacher went on to talk about their second biggest challenge. “Often when we lose somebody in our organization, or we struggle to attract somebody or they turn down an offer to come work for us, a big reason is our location. It’s typically a preference or a desire for a lot of people to either live in a big city or live close to a big city.”
Rocanville School principal Nathan Bromm informed everyone of the future crosswalk lights that will be added to help control traffic. It has been a struggle to control traffic in front of the school for a long time and current signage doesn’t seem to be making any impact. It is dangerous for students and teachers, he said.
“Just some concerns that we always have as a school is making sure that our little people and our teenagers can cross the road safely and we seem to continually have concerns with people passing some of our busses,” Bromm said.
Suggestions were made for more RCMP presence and a crossing guard program to help implement a safer walk home for children.
Highway 8 from Moosomin to Rocanville was addressed because the RM and their members are concerned that once the speed goes to 80 km/hr, more traffic will use the grid roads to get to Moosomin and the concern is the grid roads cannot handle that amount of traffic. RM of Rocanville Reeve Melissa Ruhland assured them they will use the best product they can to help with road deterioration but cannot force users to stick to the highway. The speed limit is 80 km/hr on the grids as well and people should be following speed signs.
Rob Turnbull asked, “Even if we say it’s at best two years (before the highway is rebuilt), is there a plan to upkeep some of the main grids?”
Ruhland responded, “We are doing our best, we are using the MD30 product, the road stabilizer on some of these roads and otherwise it’s just frequent grading, it’s the best we can do. The grid roads are designed for 80 km/hr also, but we know nobody drives that speed. The higher the speed, the more washboard you get. That’s one of the problems and when the roads are dry you can’t actually go in and just grade them out because you’re cutting all of the clay off your roads, so it’s kind of a balancing act. We are always open to feedback.”
According to the town and RM representatives, the latest feedback on Highway 8 reconstruction is that it will not take place until next year.
REDO concluded the meeting by saying they are open to different suggestions on helping Rocanville to grow and would like to continue to have a community meeting a few times a year to bring residents, RM members, and businesses together.
The group meets every third Thursday at 8 am. The meeting resulted in three people wanting to attend the next REDO meeting and REDO is open to more members joining. Anyone can join if they share the common goal of the committee and are interested in seeing Rocanville and area prosper.
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