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REAL ESTATE There are a growing number of claims that municipal zoning bylaws discriminate The catch-22 of group home bylaws B against disabled people and other vulnerable groups. BY KEVIN MARRON won't let him. He's not an axe-murderer or a pedophile, though some would say he's being treated like one. He is being excluded from Springfield because he is an intellectually disabled person who needs special care. New Directions, a Winnipeg-based social service agency, is seeking to house him and one or two other people with similar disabilities in ert Gockel wants noth- ing more than to live qui- etly in the tranquil rural community of Springfield, Man. But the community a "shift-staffed home" where they will receive the 24-hour care they need to carry on their everyday lives. But local residents don't want them in their neighbourhood and the local council is denying the agency planning permission. The agency has responded by taking the municipality to court, claiming before The Court of Queen's Bench that the local zoning bylaw, or the way that the municipality is inter- preting it, has "a discriminatory impact on persons with disabilities" and is inconsistent with the Charter of Rights. 26 M AY 2012 www. CANADIAN Lawyermag.com thing that distinguishes Gockel and his would-be housemates from any other residents of single-family homes is their needs as disabled people, says Shereese Qually, an associate at Taylor McCaffrey LLP in Winnipeg, who represents New Directions. A shift-staffed home is "the only way they can live in the com- munity, the only way that provides for substantive equality, It's discriminatory because the only community should have resources like this because every community has dis- abled people. The fact that they don't " she says. "The Jeff szuc