City nets $1.3-million surplus

The city is on pace for $1.3-million operating surplus for the 2009 fiscal year, according to early year-end figures.

The city generated the surplus thanks to extra revenue from new development, fire dispatch and Servus Credit Union Place, which exceeded budget expectations. Savings were also found at Servus Place and in the city's IT department.

Council will review the preliminary year-end figures at today's finance and audit committee meeting.

Administration will not provide recommendations about what to do with the surplus until next month. So far they've ruled out putting the cash into the city's rainy day reserve, which has a balance of $2.6 million and is near its maximum limit.

All figures are still subject to an audit by the city's auditor, KPMG.

Servicing plan tops priority list

Nailing down a servicing agreement with about a dozen landowners in northeast St. Albert tops city council's to-do list for the remainder of the term.


Council released its six top priorities for 2010 during Monday's council meeting. They include:

• Economic development: Make a decision on servicing the northeast corridor to aid future development along St. Albert Trail  

• Environmental sustainability: Complete the land transfer, providing St. Albert jurisdiction over the White Spruce Forest 

• Culture, arts and heritage: In cooperation with the Arts and Heritage Foundation (AHF) develop a long term prioritized capital project development program for the enhancement of arts and heritage within the community 

•  Infrastructure planning: Update the Municipal Development Plan in 2011  

•  Infrastructure planning: Update the 10-year capital plan to reflect civic facility infrastructure needs over the next decade  

• Infrastructure planning: Community standards bylaw 

Council also tossed out one of its previous priorities, creating a train whistle bylaw. That idea proved more expensive than originally anticipated and, according to Mayor Nolan Crouse, has fairly strong support on both sides of the issue.

I'll have more on the priorities, including an update on the northeast servicing, in next Wednesday's paper.

Calgary council rejects protest bylaw

A bylaw that would have limited where the public can hold demonstrations in downtown Calgary has been tossed aside, the Calgary Herald reports.

Facing heavy opposition to the new scheme, Calgary city council voted to scrap the proposed bylaw that would have created permit zones for protests provided organizers apply in advance of a demonstration.

The proposal was panned by Concerned Christians Canada and the Calgary and District Labour Council.

Read the full story here.

Eco-vision sounds great, but ...

Depending on who you talk to, the St. Albert of tomorrow could be an eco-friendly oasis where residents leisurely bike or stroll to high-powered jobs, or the annexed lands will remain little more than empty farmers’ fields.

Reality probably lies somewhere else entirely.

The two very different, very bold predictions for St. Albert come courtesy of developers with a stake in tapping into parts of the 1,337 hectares in the north.

The more optimistic scenario is called the Avenir concept, a proposed $1.6-billion mixed-use development west of North Ridge. The 135-hectare site would invest in clean-technology companies in a large-scale laboratory campus platform, creating up to 8,000 jobs.

This high-tech vision for Avenir, which in French means “future,” would coincide with a large “smart growth-style” walkable residential area that would be home to 10,000 residents.

That’s a sizeable shot in the arm for local economic development, the kind of vaccine the city desperately needs to relieve pressure on heavily taxed homeowners. So it’s more than a little eyebrow-raising when a $1.6-billion plan garners little more than passing interest from city hall.

Mayor Nolan Crouse said last week he doesn’t know what to think about Avenir because he hasn’t seen a plan with substance. The plans he has seen haven’t exactly bowled him over. When interviewed last spring, Crouse said council’s first focus is to create a light industrial park in the northwest, not residential. “I don’t know if I’m on board,” he offered.

City manager Bill Holtby called the plans creative, but put things in perspective when he called them a “trial balloon” designed to capture media attention (and investors, perhaps?) with the goal of pressuring council to bend on land uses.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Empty fields

In contrast is an equally bold, though dour inference of depressed development activity in the annexed lands. This message also comes from the development community through their formalized lobby arm, the Urban Development Institute (UDI).

The doom and gloom forecast was in response to the city’s new offsite levy rates, which will charge developers fees to help pay for new roads, water and sewer lines in the annexed lands. UDI has historically opposed such charges — even taking the City of Leduc to court in 2005 over a fee structure it deemed unfair.

Levy costs are typically offloaded onto homebuyers, a $30,000 cost per lot, according to the UDI’s math. In a tersely worded letter, UDI warned the city about levy amounts that could make St. Albert unaffordable to homebuyers, urging council to prevent this from happening. “Cities stagnate very quickly when people stop moving in,” wrote UDI chair Patrick Shaver.

There’s no question the city’s levies are high and growth hasn’t exactly surged recently, but warnings of stagnation are a bit much. St. Albert already is a more expensive place to live, but that doesn’t stop people from moving here for quality of life. As some councillors pointed out last night, other communities will face similar levy pressures as they grow and expand beyond their boundaries.

It’s only natural for public officials to expect some push and sway over how to develop the annexed lands. It’s up to council to sort out which is just hot air.

3 p.m. council meetings

City council meetings could start an hour earlier after the fall municipal election.

The current council believes meetings — both regular council and finance and audit committee sessions —should start at 3 p.m., not the current 4 p.m.

Council technically does not have the ability to decide when a future council should meet, but suggesting the start times gives prospective candidates a better idea of what to expect should they be elected on Oct. 18, said Mayor Nolan Crouse.

Two councillors with full-time jobs, Coun. James Burrows and Coun. Gareth Jones, voted against the 3 p.m. start times.

Public hearings are unaffected with 5 p.m. start times.

No to 1 p.m. start times

Coun. Len Bracko says there's enough on council's plate to warrant even earlier, 1 p.m. start times. However, like a similar motion he raised prior to the 2007 election, Bracko, a retired teacher, failed to convince his peers about afternoon meetings.

Coun. Lorie Garritty, who is semi-retired, said earlier starts would be a good idea for a full-time council, but with six part-time councillors, it could eliminate potential candidates who wouldn't be able to get away from their full-time jobs.

Raises for firefighters

St. Albert firefighters will receive nearly 14 per cent raises over two years, according to a deal with the city.

Firefighters will receive a general wage increase of 7 per cent retroactive raise for 2009 and 6.7 per cent in 2010. 

The increases are based on salaries in other fire departments in Edmonton, Calgary, Grande Prairie, Airdrie, Medicine Hat, Lethbridge, Red Deer, Spruce Grove and Strathcona County.

The new deal replaces the old collective agreement, which expired on Dec. 31, 2008.

Smart growth debate one to watch

Smell that. The winds of politics are swirling and doesn’t it smell sweet!

The new year is just two weeks old and local political junkies are in their glory with drama at every level of government. In Ottawa, the question is whether to prorogue or not to prorogue (or cut and run), while here in Alberta all eyes are transfixed on a premier who hopes a cabinet shuffle can fix what ails his leadership.  

St. Albert has seen a civic election race kick off 10 months before the big show, while council has started to tackle that heady urban planning concept called smart growth. While urban planning is far from a sexy election issue (if it even registers at all with voters), given the question at hand — what type of city do we want to become? — it’s a debate worth following.

What’s at stake goes beyond urban sprawl and changing the way we consume land. With its more compact housing forms intermingled with shops, services and green spaces, smart growth offers the potential to create distinct, self-sustainable neighbourhoods. St. Albert would still have the monster homes it’s known for, but higher densities would also provide more affordable options for an aging population, young couples, single professionals and families — in other words, diversity. If it gets that far.

Council has shown more divisions on smart growth than perhaps any other issue this term, voting 4-3 last week to continue with the process. Sure, council has had plenty of 4-3 votes, however it’s difficult to recall a topic where councillors were so firmly entrenched in their positions.

At one end is Coun. Len Bracko, whose passion for smart growth is so unshakeable he was at times last week uncharacteristically combative. Bracko repeatedly challenged developers about the need to move away from sprawl, but often missed the mark with his queries. 

A stern question quickly fizzled when he asked the Urban Development Institute (UDI) why it would have the audacity to get Randall O’Toole, a controversial U.S.-based urban planner with “zero credibility” to debunk smart growth for a group of locals. (It was the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce that had O’Toole speak). On another occasion, Bracko asked Melcor Developments’ manager Carol Wallace if she’d care to comment on studies that show low-density urban sprawl type development leads to physical inactivity. Not surprisingly, Wallace took a pass.

In the middle is Mayor Nolan Crouse, who at times appears skeptical of smart growth but seems willing to be the swing vote. If history is any indication, he’ll carefully weigh the information before reaching his own conclusions, keeping his thoughts largely private in the meantime.

On the opposite side of the divide is Coun. James Burrows, who if given the opportunity would have quashed smart growth months ago. Burrows is even offended by the term ‘smart growth,’ which implies any other development form is a fool’s game. “It’s disingenuous to suggest the St. Albert of today was not planned smart,” he said.

Burrows, who several times could be seen waving and nodding to the mass of developers in council chambers last week, is firmly on the side of the free market. Council should not dictate what type of housing or commercial is built in St. Albert. “I’m philosophically against that,” he said.

Just as skeptical is Coun. Gareth Jones, who has done plenty of homework on smart growth and isn’t sold on imposing a set of principles on all development in the annexed lands. Jones showed attention to detail when he asked how the city could spend all these months and dollars studying an issue without determining whether there is in fact a market for smart growth. 

Depending on the outcome of the upcoming debates, it’s a question voters might be well served to ask this fall.