The Northwest Child Development Centre is expanding into its neighbouring building to the south after receiving approval from city council on Oct. 12. 

A discretionary use application was submitted by the daycare for the building at 1089 Seventh Avenue Northwest.  

The building was zoned R1 – Large Lot Low Density Residential District, but council approved the discretionary use for a daycare. 

“The idea with having the other building would be to just move those who go to a different institution, so school-agers and Kindergartens, into a different building so that we're not cross-contaminating back and forth,” said Northwest Child Development Centre director Crystal Kuber-McCubbing. 

She added that the building will be separate and will not be attached. She added that there will be no additional children in the Kindergarten age group and only a few new spots for the school-aged children. 

There was one member of the public that spoke against the application. Monique Lafontaine is a neighbour that lives across the street from the daycare. 

While she was happy that the business was thriving through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has cause her and her family issues. 

Mainly she pointed that the parents are blocking their driveway when picking up and dropping off kids at the day care and they tend to leave their vehicles running, especially during the winter. 

“It's a rather scary thought that you can't use your home the way everyone else in your neighborhood can, simply because a business across the street is thriving, which is great for them, but it's negative for us,” Lafontaine said. 

During deliberations, Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning felt the issue between the neighbours and the daycare was due to lack of communication. 

She wondered if the city’s planning and development department could work with the two parties to bridge the gap in communicating. 

“It doesn't matter to me whether it's 2 seconds or two minutes. If you're blocking a driveway, you're in the wrong,” Luhning said.  

“How do we make these things work in these types of areas where there's residences and businesses? Because you can't have that; where people are blocking driveways, you can’t.”