Red Deer County Mayor Brent Ramsay discusses growth and hopes for the future

Ramsay said he heard concerns from the community about continuity, given the amount of change they’ve seen, but he said it’s been a positive change.

“We have a great group of councillors who are positive, working together, and share a similar mindset in what they want to achieve,” he said. “I think that’s really important. Government moves slow enough as it is, and when you have a council that’s not working together, it moves really slow.”

Red tape reduction

Ramsay explained that red tape reduction was one of his campaign pillars that he ran on during the election.

It’s also something he said the county has done well with up to this point; however, there are always ways to find efficiency.

“We need to be efficient, we need to give people the flexibility and freedom to move quickly, and we need to give our staff that flexibility too. We’ve kind of bogged them down with these things,” Ramsay said.

He hopes to get to a point where they have fewer requests coming to the planning commission and speed up the process. He said every time something comes to the commission, it adds a couple of weeks to the timeline for a permit.

They want to provide citizens the ability to be able to do more on their own land without having to acquire a permit, but also still respecting that there needs to be rules.

“We’ve seen a shift in some municipalities. In the Town of Sundre, they’ve actually removed their municipal planning commission completely. They said they went back and looked and were approving 98 per cent of staff recommendations… I don’t think we are there yet. We have a very diverse community, and I think there are things we need to look at more in-depth. It’s about where we can add that flexibility and speed up those permitting timelines.”

Regional partnerships

Ramsay explained they’re required to have an intermunicipal collaboration framework in place with every municipality that borders Red Deer.

He said the county is unique as they have 16 agreements, including seven urban municipalities, five county’s, and Sylvan Lake has several summer villages that border the community.

He said it essentially forces them to work together even though they already were. It highlights the need to do that, and the mayor explained it’s important to the success of all the municipalities.

He said how the county fits in is that they don’t necessarily have a ton of people, but rather quite a bit of infrastructure.

“We have the second most kilometres of roads out of any rural municipality in Alberta, so that’s pretty extensive. It requires a lot of resources,” the Mayor said. “Our residents depend on our urban partners for recreation facilities and all of that stuff we don’t want to have to build. We’ve got to work with them to make sure it’s sustainable.”

He said they need to work together to support each other as costs continue to go up. For example, he said the Town of Olds did a feasibility study on building a new arena, which would cost over $80 million.

“I don’t know how they can do that on their tax base, combined with the county’s tax base. As the cost of these facilities keeps going up, how do we manage that, how do we work together, and how do we keep them sustainable because our residents still need them?” Ramsay said.

He added that he attended a regional forum to collaborate with regional partners to figure out how to accomplish collaborative goals.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have the answer, but I’m hoping that if we get enough people in a room together, we can sort that out.”

He also hopes to continue to build a solid relationship with the City of Red Deer and Mayor Cindy Jefferies.

Economic development

Gasoline Alley

The Mayor explained that Gasoline Alley continues to grow and be successful.

He recently attended the opening of the pickleball complex and said the Central Alberta Medical Imaging Services site is being worked on right now, and there’s a new daycare facility just outside Liberty landing with a pharmacy and a medical clinic.

Ramsay also said the roadway construction at Airport Drive was completed on time and on budget.

Meantime, with Junction 42, the province continues to be very supportive. They just completed a new roundabout and expanded the truck parking lot.

They hope to attract more services, such as hotels, to the area.

Residential growth

The Mayor said they’ve had 154 new housing starts over the past year, which has been exciting and largely due to some of the stuff they’ve achieved in Liberty Landing.

He said the previous council amended their municipal development plan to allow second subdivisions on agricultural land.

He said they’re working on allowing for more growth where it makes sense, but admitted they’re being extra cautious.

“This is something that could cause generational problems, and so we’re trying to be extra cautious about how we approach this. It’s going to be interesting to see how it works with the first few that come through, and then if we have to adjust as we get through red tape stuff, I think that’s something we’ll look at.”

Growth in assessment

Ramsay said this year they passed the first reading of their tax rate bylaw and decided to hold the mill rate for both residential and non-residential because they achieved five per cent growth in assessments.

They increased farm land by 15 per cent and have increased it by at least 10 per cent over the last few years. He said this is to allow producers to keep up with inflation because their assessed value is regulated.

Residents have also been hit by the province with an increase in education property tax and the police funding model.

“Last year, the education property tax went up 11 per cent in our region. This year they’re up 12 per cent,” he said. “We’re hearing this is going to be the last big increase by the province, but it’s hard to hold them to that.”

In closing

He said council is just getting started, and Ramsay said they have to build on their strengths, support responsible growth, and work together.

“We want to continue making it a great place to live for not only our residents, farmers, and businesses, but also to support a strong and successful future,” he said.

by Ian Gustafson

Red Deer County Mayor Brent Ramsay discusses growth and hopes for the future

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