Granite Curling Club files new court challenge over permits for parking lot development

Granite Curling Club is pictured on Granite Way in Winnipeg, Man., on Oct. 15, 2026. The club has filed a second legal challenge against the City of Winnipeg over permits issued for a 12-storey apartment building planned for the neighbouring parking lot. (Scott Andersson/CTV News Winnipeg)

Granite Curling Club has launched a second legal challenge against the City of Winnipeg, this time targeting the permits issued for a proposed apartment building on a parking lot the club has long used.

In a notice of application filed Wednesday in the Court of King’s Bench of Manitoba, the club is seeking a judicial review of the permits issued for a 12-storey apartment building at 30 Granite Way. It is also challenging the city’s determination that a condition requiring an adequate parking plan had been met.

The application names the city, its directors of public works and of planning, property and development, and non-profit developer UWCRC 2.0 Inc. as respondents.

The club is asking a judge to quash the permits and the parking plan determination and to grant an injunction halting any further approvals or physical work on the lot. It also wants the city ordered to remove barricades the club says the city placed and restore the club’s use of the lot.

The city’s online permit database shows the development and partial foundation permits for the property were issued on Sept. 2 and the building permit on Oct. 13.

According to the filing, barricades went up on the lot on Oct. 6 and “excavation and other site disturbance activities” began the next day.

The club alleges the permits were issued without notice and before a condition attached to the rezoning was met. It says it asked the directors in June 2025 for the criteria they would use to decide what counts as an adequate parking plan and never received them. The filing says the information the club was given consists “primarily of general descriptions of proposed parking arrangements,” and that it has not received a finalized plan or supporting analysis.

The filing also alleges the directors did not require a sufficient analysis to determine the parking needs of a 1,300-member club. It says the permits and the parking plan determination are “not justified, transparent or intelligible.” It argues the club is “suffering irreparable harm” because it has “lost all use of the parking lot property for an indefinite period of time.”

The new application is separate from the club’s first court case, which seeks to quash the rezoning bylaw that rezoned the land. Justice Amiram Kotler heard that case on June 9 and reserved his decision. A ruling has not yet been issued.

The club says the permits depend on the validity of the bylaw and that they were issued while the first case remained under reserve.

In a statement, a city spokesperson said construction has not begun and that the developer completed the on-site component of a preliminary Heritage Resources Impact Assessment last week. The city said it has not yet received a decision from the court in relation to the club’s application for judicial review and can’t comment further on matters before the court.

Jeremy Read, CEO of UWCRC 2.0, said crews spent a day and a half digging five trenches to make sure there were no artifacts, cultural materials or sacred sites on the lot and found nothing of significance.

He said he wouldn’t characterize the work as pre-construction, construction, foundation or excavation work.

“It’s been covered up, and the lot’s been restored to (its) previous condition,” Read told CTV News on Thursday. He said he’s waiting to hear on Kotler’s ruling in the first legal challenge.

“But as things stand right now, there’s a legal subdivision there, and we’re proceeding as if there is,” he said.

First challenge targets rezoning bylaw

The club operates a curling facility at 22 Granite Way, a heritage building constructed in 1912, on city-owned land. The filing says the club has leased and used dedicated parking stalls on the neighbouring lot for more than 50 years.

The club learned in early 2025 that the city planned to subdivide the property and rezone the west parking lot to allow for a multi-storey residential development. The club says that would eliminate roughly 45 of its 80 parking stalls, which it describes as essential to its operational viability.

The city has partnered with UWCRC 2.0 on the project, which is part of a broader push to accelerate housing construction and unlock $122.4 million from the federal Housing Accelerator Fund.

The proposed bylaw received first reading in March 2025, but after drawing sufficient objections, it was referred to the Manitoba Municipal Board.

The board ultimately recommended the city allow the bylaw to proceed to second and third reading — provided that, before any development permit is issued, the city work with the club to establish an “adequate parking plan in order to support the ongoing operational sustainability of the club, to the satisfaction of the Granite Curling Club” and relevant city department directors.

City officials advised council it could proceed regardless, arguing the board can only make recommendations about the proposed zoning bylaw and cannot impose a condition on a development permit. Council gave the bylaw second and third reading in December 2025.

The club launched its first court challenge days later, seeking to quash the bylaw.

The city has said its proposed arrangement would provide 70 dedicated stalls, about 10 fewer than the current configuration.

Richard Mahé, the city’s land enhancement administrator, said in June that the stalls would include 15 in a new on-street parking option on Granite Way, 24 at the east parking lot, 11 in a new vehicle approach and 20 retained on the west parking lot. He said those stalls would not be shared with the housing development, which would have its own dedicated parking.

The new filing says the proposed parking arrangements “remain incomplete and contingent” on further design work, future agreements and implementation steps. It asks that the application be heard with or immediately after the decision in the first case, saying the issues overlap.

On Thursday, James Mercury, the curling club’s legal counsel, said he had no comment.

The latest application is scheduled to be heard on Oct. 26.