Public dollars spent on capital projects are helping the local economy, according to Canmore Mayor Ron Casey.
The remark came from Casey during his annual state of the community address at the Bow Valley Builders and Developers Association last week.
He began by pointing to the number of locals employed to construct the $39 million Multiplex.
“That was part of the goal of this project,” Casey said.
Currently approximately 80 to 100 people are working on the major project on a day-to-day basis. On all crews, according to Town staff, that includes 35 locals or about 35 per cent and could increase as the project moves towards stonework and finishing work inside such as flooring and carpentry.
In addition to that project, he also drew attention to the $2.1 million daycare that is close to completion due to generosity from the development industry.
“It has really been a community collective that has allowed this to move forward,” he said.
Casey said the $4.5 million underpass completed in 2011 and funded two-thirds by the federal government again used mostly local contractors.
In 2011, residential building permits totalled $22 million, while commercial was at $36 million, including Town of Canmore projects, said Casey. The total of $58 million was up from 2010 totals of $38 million.
“Most of that difference is, in fact, made up by Town of Canmore projects,” he said.
While municipal projects are a good news story in light of current economic times, the mayor said looking to the future Canmore needs to recognize that even if the economy turns around there is a shortage of land ready for development.
“The truth is we do not have a lot of land that is zoned and serviced and ready to go,” he said. “This is something we need to keep in mind because when it turns around, we are not in a position to handle it.”
The mayor added an overview of the capital and operational budgets in his presentation. Total capital project expenditures over the next five years total $59.7 million with total debt, excluding the Multiplex, rising $8.1 million to a total of $31 million and servicing rising by $400,000 to $3.2 million.
Casey, however, added reserves are expected to be at a $22.1 million balance, which is a healthy amount.
The projects proposed include $7.8 million in street rehabilitation, $6.4 million for Cougar Creek erosion mitigation, $5 million for Railway Avenue, $4.5 million to redevelop the Rec Centre and $3.1 million for the Legacy Trial.
The 2012 operational budget sits at $39.6 million, with municipal tax increases expected to be 4.9 per cent for total taxation of $17.5 million. That excludes growth, local improvements and the downtown business revitalization zone levy.
Casey also provided members of BOWDA with an overview of the newly adopted input/offset matrix as part of the Sustainability Screening Report process.
The industry has long been critical of the subjectivity of the process and what it felt was a lack of appeal process. Changes over the past year have dealt with those issues and the matrix, said the mayor, to assess the impact of individual developments.
“It is a clear indicator about what a development’s benefit to the community is,” he said.
Using data from the community monitoring report to measure the Town’s current footprint and then assess a proposed development’s affect on a project helped to develop the spreadsheet.
“The fact that our data goes back to 1995 is a stroke of genius,” Casey said. “I wish I could say it was planned to be what it is today, but of course it wasn’t.”
