CANMORE – A pair of flood mitigation projects are recommended to be pushed back to cover the remaining costs of potentially finishing Cougar Creek next year.
Canmore’s finance committee recommended council move construction of Three Sisters Creek at $4.225 million and Stone Creek at $500,000 to 2026 as part of a shuffling of money to adjust to the $8.3 million needed from Town coffers to complete Cougar Creek.
The two projects were intended to start in 2024, but Town staff said ongoing labour issues, increased inflation on construction prices and some creek mitigation waiting on the Court of Appeal ruling between the Town and Three Sisters Mountain Village Properties Limited (TSMVPL) is delaying discussions which will make it better to move forward in future years.
“For the creek mitigation program, in particular, we’ve been waiting on a decision on the (TSMVPL) area structure plans (ASPs) lands,” said Andy Esarte, the Town’s manager of engineering at a November finance committee meeting.
“There’s coordination between mitigation for existing development as well as future development, so we’ve restarted those discussions and we’ll be looking at the schedule as we coordinate through concept scheme and into development plans for the Resort Centre. We may see this come back and it would be for the intent of building it at the time that it makes sense for the community and future development and in a way it can be done efficiently.”
According to the capital planning summary, $3.877 million for Three Sisters Creek would come from grants and $348,000 from reserves. The Stone Creek project would receive $410,000 from grants and $90,000 from reserves.
The Three Sisters Creek project covers a significant part of the developed Three Sisters lands and an area of the Three Sisters Village ASP.
With the Court of Appeal upholding the Land and Property Rights Tribunal decisions on both the Three Sisters Village and Smith Creek ASPs, it has led to planning to launch the two developments.
TSMVPL and the Town have already met for a pre-application meeting and a similar meeting is expected to take place for Smith Creek. Much of 2024 and parts of 2025 are expected to outline planning and infrastructure needs, with development potentially beginning in 2025.
Stone Creek is located above the Silvertip Golf Course with Stoneworks' flood mitigation project downstream and within the Palliser lands.
A staff report stated the steep creek hazard mitigation project is being re-evaluated for both scope and cost and will return at the 2025 budget.
The capital planning summary has $2.5 million outlined for 2026 and $7.5 million in 2027. Of that, it’s budgeted that $7.027 million would come from grants and $1.168 million from reserves. Another $1.805 million is listed as coming from other funding means.
The Cougar Creek project needed an additional $29.1 million in funding to potentially finish construction in 2024. The project has significantly fallen behind schedule, having originally been set to be completed in 2021.
The Town and Flatiron Constructors Canada Limited ended their contract with one another in early 2023 after substantial delays pushed the project well behind schedule. A formal dispute process had about a dozen facilitated sessions and ultimately led to a without-cause end to the contract.
The province ultimately provided a $16.7 million grant in August, with the Town already committing $4.1 million in interest from past provincial funding and remaining on the hook for the final $8.3 million.
It led to council directing Town staff in September to cancel or delay $8.3 million in projects to offset costs, which included Three Sisters Creek and Stone Creek.
The funding for Cougar Creek was also recommended to be reshuffled from $5.3 million coming from asset replacement and rehabilitation reserve, $2 million from general capital reserve and $1 million from flood mitigation structure maintenance reserve. It was amended to have $7.1 million from asset replacement and rehabilitation reserve and $1.2 million from the former Municipal Sustainibility Initiative.
Town staff has previously said they’re applying for other grants through the federal government.
According to the capital planning summary, as of Sept. 30 of the $68.92 million budgeted for Cougar Creek construction $36.23 million has been spent. Of the $9.25 million for the environmental impact assessment and design, $1.875 million has been used. The summary also notes $1.878 million has been spent for flood recovery direct repair program insurance to restore areas around Elk Run Boulevard in 2024.
Esarte highlighted labour issues are expected to be a challenge in the coming years.
“It’s going to be a challenge, I think, for the foreseeable future getting contractors on work, so to a large extent it’s about prioritizing the projects and putting them out in the sequence for years that they make sense,” he said.
