Development In the Crowsnest Pass

My position on development in the Crowsnest Pass:

In the Crowsnest Pass it's not a surprise to most people we have a huge problem almost 90% of our tax base is residential. Our primary source of employment is the coal mines in the Elk Valley, our secondary sources of employment,  a few government jobs, and the retail and service sectors.

Do we need Development in the Crowsnest Pass? Beyond a shadow of doubt. 

With approximately 3200 homes in the Pass building 15-20 homes a year will take us close to 200 years just to maintain the number of homes we have today. The next council needs to sit down with residential developers and determine what we as a community can do to attract more building here. Off site levies need to be done away with completely not a one year freeze that is presently in place. We need to look at the fees we charge for people to build, are we in line with communities around us that are competing for the same home owners we are. We have to realize that if you attract people here to build they will pay taxes on that property for many years to come, they will put kids in our schools and spend their wages in our community.

Nobody wants another Bridgegate, Medican. What we need is more of the Ironstones, Southmores, Mohawk Meadows, and Timberlines. All of those developments were good for the Pass and will continue to help us to increase our tax base over the coming years.

Commercial development, we are in desperate need of it commercial development not only creates employment through the building stage, but then it creates long term employment for as long as the business is in existence. Let's not forget one commercial business will pay the equivalent taxes of many homes.

So to be clear again Dean Ward as been and will be pro-development, my wish is to see us grow at a much greater rate than we presently are.

If elected I will propose to the rest of Council that we sit down with all the developers and builders in the Crowsnest Pass, find out what the issues are and determine where the municipality can help.

Good News in the Crowsnest Pass???

My fellow blogger is reporting that we have an Holiday Inn on the way.

http://blog.johnprince.ca/2012/10/word-on-street.html

I sure hope his source is right.

Between the millions of dollars that will be received for the municipality from the sale of the property, a very quick source of tax base. The employment that this will create and the large number of people that this will drag in of the highway. These are all good things for a community that needs some good news.

I always knew that this was the most likely location to attract new business to our community, assuming that this news is correct the battle over that property and all the BS that went with it, will have been worth while.

Also let's not forget the people that went through the same fight back in the late 90's former Councillors Prince and Montgomery hard to believe that it took so long for common sense to prevail.

Why didn't we think of that?

Today I was having a conversation with a couple of newer residents of the Crowsnest Pass.
Quickly the discussion turned to the issue of the Crowsnest Centre, one of the folks started applauding the present council for not attempting to run the centre, for moving ahead with the demolition and for finally attempting to take advantage of commercial opportunities on that property.
To this point I totally agreed with this couple, then he totally floored me with the comment "I can't believe that previous councils didn't deal with this issue".  Well if I had false teeth I would have spit them out. I asked "where have you been?, haven't you read the papers the last five years?". In all fairness they have only lived here since 2009.
So I ordered another tea and spent the next ninety minutes filling this couple in on the history of the facility.

If present council gets rid of this property and realizes the commercial opportunity that this community so desperately needs I say good for them, and good for the Pass.

I argued for the last ten years that there is no where else along highway 3 that provides the opportunities for commercial development that the Centre property allows for. I asked the naysayers over and over to tell me where else you could go? nobody had an answer.

If the proposed venture for that property comes true I am sure the entire present council and administration will line up for all the glory.

I would like to think that somebody will stand up and say  lets give some credit to the majority of the previous council that had the brains to have a vision for this property that saw it being turned into a tax base for this community, a provider of employment and revitalization for this community. I hope somebody has the courtesy to recognize that the majority of the previous council had the "balls" to take this issue on. Believe me over the last three years of my time on council, my life could have been spared a lot of grief if I had backed off on this issue.

This council was given the opportunity to ride in and claim victory way after the battles had been fought for them.
But isn't politics all about timing?

I hope that council finds a buyer for this property quickly, I hope they do the sale with conditions  that force a buyer to have a vested interest up front, with very strict conditions that force the buyer to develop quickly.
I hope they don't spend a considerable portion of our municipal reserves to demolish that building to have the property sit vacant for the next ten years.

The last thing this community needs is another developer that promises the world, and delivers nothing but holes in the ground.