Women's association disappointed after city rejects its Niven daycare plan

The head of an N.W.T. women's association says she is disappointed after the City of Yellowknife rejected its plan to open a daycare in the Niven neighbourhood.

Hawa Dumbuya-Sesay, the executive director of YWCA NWT, said Tuesday that when they first started talking to the city about their plans in the summer of 2023, it "seemed like everything was going to go smoothly."

That changed in September of this year.

That's when Dumbuya-Sesay said they were told for the first time that their development application would likely not be approved. The city cited traffic and noise pollution as the reasons why, she said.

The application's rejection this month was first reported by Cabin Radio on Monday.

CBC News has requested an interview with the city.

According to a city document the YWCA's plan had been to turn a single detached home on 101 Haener Drive in Niven into a daycare with up to seven staff and 32 children. The building sits at the corner of Haener Drive, Driscoll Road and Moyle Drive.

The document, which CBC News asked the city for, concludes that the daycare conflicts with the city's community plan and zoning bylaw. It noted that there were also concerns from the public about traffic congestion, compromised visibility and potential safety risks that the developer "did not properly address."

"The location on a corner lot bordered by three streets would anticipate substantial safety and traffic management challenges should this proposal be approved as presented," reads the decision by city planner Andrew Treger.

"This area is already in a difficult situation from [a] traffic management perspective due to existing school bus routes, and the proposed layout indicates that vehicles dropping off children will likely need to back into traffic, exacerbating safety concerns."

Treger says that changes to the road and sidewalk could address the challenges but they aren't outlined in the current application, and therefore a new one would need to be submitted.

Dumbuya-Sesay said the YWCA started looking into carrying out a traffic study in September, when they first realized their application likely wouldn't get the greenlight. She wishes that was something the city had suggested to them from the start.

"I think that the big issue here was lack of proper communication from the city, giving us feedback and letting us know what's possible and what's not, rather than stringing us along all this month."

Dumbuya-Sesay said the YWCA has put $90,000 into preparing the building to become a daycare already. She said they're going to re-file their application, and will work with the city to address its concerns.

On top of the traffic study, she said, they could also reduce the number of children who can attend the daycare from 32 to 16 even though she says those spaces are something the "community's desperately in need of."

"We'll continue to advocate for this need and to make sure families in Yellowknife have the support and resources they need," she said.