Municipal Lots in the Crowsnest Pass:

On September 6, 2011 Councilor Mitchell made the following motion which was passed unanimously by council.

M#6248 -11:
Councillor L. Mitchell moved to authorize Administration to reduce the price of
the listed Municipal residential lots by 10% as of September 6, 2011 and remove
the two year building commitment requirement from any future sale of municipal
residential lots.

First impression of this, is it’s not a big deal.

Let me raise the concerns I struggled with on previous council:

Should the municipality be selling lots in competition with the private sector especially in a era where the real estate market is not exactly booming?

The municipality only possesses a relatively small amount of residential lots. Why not sell them in a strong market when you can realize the maximum value for the taxpayers assets?

The argument was made by the proponents of this initiative that if the municipality sold these lots with a requirement that the purchaser must build within two years. A condition that private developers did not require, the municipality would potentially create some much needed tax base.

Well with this motion there is no pressure on a purchaser to build any time soon how many times have we seen lots sit vacant year after year in the Crowsnest Pass.

Maybe that legal requirement is not enforceable, if that's the case don’t give the lots away save them for better times.

What’s going to happen when the assessments come out next June? if I owned a vacant lot in the Pass and it was assessed for more than $70,000 I would be appealing that based on the bench mark price set by the Municipality itself.

Something to think about.