State of the union addresses Canmore’s priorities for 2019

CANMORE – The Town of Canmore is gearing up for another busy year with dozens of projects and priorities slated to commence in 2019.

At the top of the list this year are a number of capital investments, including taking the first steps to build a new fire hall, improving transit infrastructure and upgrading facilities and services.

Other priorities include a focus on the environment, reorganizing the Town’s administrative model and updating its land use bylaw.

“It’s important as a town that we balance the competing interests, needs and wants of the community, which is no easy task,” said Mayor John Borrowman, during his annual state of the union address to members of the Bow Valley Builders and Developers Association on Jan. 10.

As an organization, he said the Town strives to balance competing interests in a fiscally prudent manner, however sometimes tough decisions need to be made.

“Canmore remains an exceptional community in which to live and work – with a full spectrum of services provided to residents and visitors alike. However, we are not a small town anymore and we need to enhance our ability to serve our community effectively today, while at the same time, prepare for the future and long-term sustainable growth.”

In order to meet Canmore’s current needs as well as its future growth, one of the biggest projects to commence in 2019 will be planning for a new fire hall.

Built in 1986, the firehall was originally designed to protect a population of 4,000, but is now responsible for the safety of approximately 15,000 residents and over 10,000 visitors per day during the peak tourist seasons.

“The current facility is currently operating at or beyond capacity and the amount and size of equipment used by the fire and rescue department has increased significantly since the time of the original construction,” said Borrowman.

Over the next 12 months, residents will also see phase one of the Canmore Rec Centre project reopen to the public in stages with the new ice plant already operational.

The second floor is expected to be complete by early March, with the lobby area opening mid-March.

In the year ahead, the Town also hopes to replace the playground at Lions Park as well as expand the tennis courts from three to five. There are also plans to replace the surface of the playground at Eagle Terrace.

Transit remains an important priority for the Town again this year with a focus on improving bus stops, including installing new concrete pads, bus shelters, benches, bike racks, garbage and recycling containers and digital next bus signs at several locations.

According to Borrowman, ridership on Roam increased by almost 60 per cent in 2018 compared to the year before, thanks in part to fare-free transit offered in Canmore in July and August.

In the downtown core, he said the Town intends to move forward on creating an intercept parking lot and implement paid parking to help fund free local transit services. The plan includes looking at using paid parking technologies as well as a residential parking pass system.

The Bow Valley Trail, Railway Avenue and Palliser Trail will also be the focus of new infrastructure upgrades to improve the flow of traffic for both cars and pedestrians.

On the environmental front, council will continue to move forward and implement the recommendations of a wildlife coexistence report, including addressing the number of fruit trees in town and installing 2.4 metre high fencing around Lawrence Grassi Middle School and Centennial Park to keep elk out.

“The technical report provides 28 recommendations to reduce conflict between wildlife and humans in the Bow Valley and will serve various management bodies as a guide to enhance human-wildlife coexistence,” said Borrowman.

There are also plans to install solar panels on Elevation Place, artsPlace, the seniors centre, the Roundhouse, and the waste management centre over the next two years. The Town has also received a grant to hire a climate change specialist for a two-year term to assist in decreasing the Town’s greenhouse gas emissions and will begin rolling out a food waste organics diversion program for commercial and residential collection.

“We will be installing five community collection containers in key locations, with 100 roll carts for commercial collection and 2,000 small food waste containers for residents. Food waste diversion will significantly assist the Town in reaching its 2020 Environmental Sustainability Action Plan goal of 0.45 tonnes per person, per year,” said Borrowman.

When it comes to governance, the Town will also begin reviewing its administrative model, including adding new positions to keep up with the workload.

“A recent organizational review highlighted that the Town has reached the limit of its current administrative model,” said Borrowman. “As we can no longer operate as a small Town, some of what is in this budget reflects a need to scale our model to more accurately reflect the true cost of delivering services to the community.”

In 2019, the Town will also continue to update its land use bylaw to reflect changes to the Municipal Government Act and bring the community into 2019.

Although the entire bylaw is not being changed, the changes are significant enough to warrant a complete rewrite of it rather than a large-scale amendment.

Council gave first reading to the bylaw in the fall of 2018, which includes a number of changes, such as allowing accessory dwelling units in all low density residential neighbourhoods and requirements for new hotels and hostels along Bow Valley Trail to provide onsite employee housing.

The bylaw also included greater flexibility in building heights to allow more flexible designs, updated signage regulations, reduce parking requirements and revisiting FireSmart regulations.

There will be a public open house on Tuesday (Jan. 22) at the Holiday Inn starting at 5 p.m. A public hearing is also scheduled for Feb. 5 at 5 p.m. at the Civic Centre.

Creating more affordable housing will also remain a priority for the town in the year ahead.

According to Borrowman, over the next few months the remainder of the 49 perpetual affordable housing units at Hawks Bend will be occupied, officially marking the completion of that project by the Canmore Community Housing Corporation (CCHC).

CCHC also recently acquired 17 rental units from Mountain Haven Cooperative Housing in the Three Sisters area of town and is in the process of converting the entire development project from a cooperative to a condominium association.

When the process is complete, all 44 units will be managed under the same eligibility criteria as CCHC’s Perpetually Affordable Housing (PAH) program.

“With the addition of 93 units with those projects, I just reference the total number of controlled affordable housing units to meet the needs of housing in Canmore is now well over 250 units, which is a good start,” said Borrowman.

Visit www.canmore.ca/projects for more information about projects and priorities in the year ahead.