Regina Minute: Issue 125

Regina Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Regina politics

📅 This Week In Regina: 📅

• Today marks a special milestone for Regina Minute: this is our 125th issue! For 125 weeks, we’ve been keeping an eye on the news, agendas, policies, and decisions coming out of City Hall so you can stay informed about what’s happening without having to spend hours following it all yourself. We’re grateful to everyone who reads Regina Minute, shares it with a friend, and takes the time to respond - your support helps make this work possible. Regina Minute is funded entirely by readers like you, so if you find these updates valuable, please consider making a donation to help us keep watching what’s happening at Council and bringing it to your inbox every week.
  
  
• The Board of Revision will meet on Thursday at 9:00 am to hear appeals against the City's 2026 commercial and industrial property assessments. Six appeals are scheduled, covering properties on Park Street, Rose Street, Prince of Wales Drive, McAra Street and 11th Avenue. The appeals are being argued by an agent from the accounting firm MNP, with the City's Manager of Assessment Services and two other assessment staff appearing for the City. The panel has reserved an optional recess to Friday if it does not finish in one day. 
  
  
• The City of Regina says it is reviewing how to regulate artificial intelligence data centres inside City limits, and anticipates proposed zoning bylaw amendments in 2027. The City said it currently has no regulations specific to data centres and has been monitoring the issue as it affects municipalities across the country. The review follows a Saskatoon Council vote on July 29th that directed its own administration to study the pros and cons of data centres and imposed a temporary moratorium on proposals until that report is done. Mayor Chad Bachynski claims Council will review any proposed amendments thoroughly, and argues the City needs two separate conversations, one about data centre infrastructure and a broader one about AI that he says is beyond any individual city's control.
  
  
• A proposed property tax subclass for standalone surface parking lots in Regina's city centre is not being recommended by the stakeholders the City consulted. City Council directed Administration to explore the idea through a motion passed in January 2025 by then Councillor Andrew Stevens, with the aim of pushing owners to redevelop their lots. Luke Grazier, the City's Director of Sustainable Infrastructure, says the lots are not being redeveloped mainly because of market conditions, construction costs and land economics, and that some stakeholders suggested an incentive program would work better than a new tax. Others raised concerns about parking supply, noting that 95 of the 142 standalone surface lots counted in the city centre are set aside for specific employees, customers or tenants, and that one Crown corporation has about 400 people on a waitlist. The City says a subclass would generate no additional tax revenue for Regina, and that provincial legislation prevents it from directing parking revenue to transit the way Vancouver and Montreal do. Administration's report is due at Council on October 7th.
  
  
• The City of Regina is renaming Armour Road to LaFayette Road in honour of a family whose relatives were among the first Black settlers in Saskatchewan. Mayor Chad Bachynski announced the change at a LaFayette family reunion on July 31st, held near the road in the city's northwest. Lewis and Lillie LaFayette arrived in Regina from Iowa in 1906, and their son Carl was believed to be the first person of African descent born in Regina, in 1907. Carol LaFayette-Boyd, a granddaughter and the executive director of the Saskatchewan African Canadian Heritage Museum, says the family first applied to have a street named for one of her brothers before deciding the family name was more fitting. Armour Road runs east-west through relatively undeveloped land, so the City expects the signage change to be straightforward, with more signs added as planned residential and commercial projects proceed. No date has been set for the change, though Bachynski says it will happen soon.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

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