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  #1  
Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 9:12 PM
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Chestermere to Become Alberta's 18th City

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...city-1.2782071

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The vote, which passed 6-1, took place in the community just east of Calgary Monday night in a packed council chambers.

The province still has to approve the status change.

"The biggest downside is the emotional aspect," Mayor Patricia Matthews said while responding to a question about the negatives of becoming a city.

She said in 2004 she investigated whether the community should have capped its population.

The population is now more than 17,000 people.

A town can change its status to city once it hits 10,000 residents, and Chestermere surpassed that in 2007.

Currently there are 17 cities in Alberta, and there are roughly 10 towns that have enough population to be eligible for city status.
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Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 9:19 PM
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Those other towns that are currently eligible for city status are:

- Beaumont

- Canmore

- Cochrane

- High River

- Okotoks

- Stony Plain

- Strathmore

- Sylvan Lake

- Whitecourt

The two urban service areas, Fort McMurray and Sherwood Park, are also eligible for city status (with 70,000 and 65,000 residents each, respectively).
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Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 9:31 PM
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Neither Fort McMurray or Sherwood Park are eligible for city status, as both are considered urban service areas of regional municipalities. I don't think the province would grant either request for city status, as both had their city status revoked in the past.

In regards to Chestermere, the city plans to quadruple their population by 2040. Building a dense, walkable downtown area and connecting directly to Calgary's urban area. The city would be over 60 000 people, and likely be connected to at least Calgary's BRT network, if not our rail rapid transit network by this time.




Full article: http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/ca...247/story.html
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Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 10:59 PM
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Originally Posted by Chadillaccc View Post
Neither Fort McMurray or Sherwood Park are eligible for city status, as both are considered urban service areas of regional municipalities. I don't think the province would grant either request for city status, as both had their city status revoked in the past.

In regards to Chestermere, the city plans to quadruple their population by 2040. Building a dense, walkable downtown area and connecting directly to Calgary's urban area. The city would be over 60 000 people, and likely be connected to at least Calgary's BRT network, if not our rail rapid transit network by this time.
I see this move as a more of an attempt to shake from Calgary's development ideas and goals. I suspect a few pragmatic things may happen, but density isn't one of them - at least at first. Unless sprawl with large lot sizes in open prairie and farmland is considered adding density.

I hope you are right Chad, but the dialog suggests this is a move to avoid being swallowed by the city and being forced to implement many of the land-use and corridor rules that would integrate Chestemere even more and make it .

The creation of these satellite cities won't matter significantly from Calgary's perspective for a while (there is more than enough growth within the city proper as well as the large corporate tax base that is going nowhere else in the region). But unchecked it is a serious problem especially if the outlying municipalities disagree substantially on the vision of the metropolitan area.

Interestingly, I believe I read that due to the lack of commercial tax base, the property tax rates for surrounding cities is actually higher than Calgary. Calgary being more attractive - leads to higher house prices, meaning each house pays on average more - but the rate itself is lower.

Who knows what the future will bring

Perhaps "cities" like Chestemere will have to bow to the increasingly powerful economic trends of increasing transportation costs and millennials choosing the city in ever greater numbers and become more urban themselves?
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Old Posted Sep 30, 2014, 11:32 PM
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Originally Posted by Chadillaccc View Post
Neither Fort McMurray or Sherwood Park are eligible for city status, as both are considered urban service areas of regional municipalities. I don't think the province would grant either request for city status, as both had their city status revoked in the past.
Isn't Sherwood Park technically a hamlet, or something insane like that? I think it's a huge scam that they play that card to milk the system.
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Old Posted Oct 1, 2014, 4:46 AM
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Sherwood Park has never been a city, so they didn't have their city status revoked. Strathcona County residents voted to maintain a single local government for the entire county. Fort McMurray is formerly a city but was amalgamated into Wood Buffalo in the 90s. I did some searching online and have one source saying they're eligible to become cities if they so chose, and no sources saying they aren't eligible.
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Old Posted Oct 1, 2014, 2:27 PM
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Originally Posted by s211 View Post
Isn't Sherwood Park technically a hamlet, or something insane like that? I think it's a huge scam that they play that card to milk the system.
Please enlighten us all as to what this scam is?
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Old Posted Oct 1, 2014, 2:53 PM
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Please enlighten us all as to what this scam is?
It is my understanding that they are able to avail themselves of a higher proportion of provincial funding versus being a city. If they were a city, they'd have to support a higher burden of civic taxation, and get less provincial funding.

At least that's how it was explained to me.
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Old Posted Oct 1, 2014, 3:59 PM
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^ If true, that sounds more to me like an imbalance in how provincial finding is allocated, than in the status of Sherwood Park/Strathcona County itself. If that's the case I'd rather see that fixed than force an arbitrary designation onto a community.
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  #10  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2014, 3:59 PM
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Calgary should annex Chestermere and cap south Calgary development.

Our city sprawls 27km from the core south. East portion of our city is the least developed.

One of the biggest problems with these "towns" and soon to be cities, in particular Okotoks is the dependance on Calgary infrastructure & resources, despite the fact that their property taxes don't support Calgary.

Okotoks doesn't have a water supply to support their growth and until recently was capped @ 30,000. Now they uncapped it and are proposing an $80m pipeline from Calgary to Okotoks so they can use our water source, all the while remaining as a separate town. It is quite shocking how close Okotoks is to our most southern neighborhood "Legacy".

Supposedly this is all acceptable though as they are part of the Calgary regional plan yet some cities have since opted out and are considering opting out(Airdrie). This makes future cooperation not necessarily very cooperative.
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  #11  
Old Posted Oct 2, 2014, 6:28 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joe498 View Post
Calgary should annex Chestermere and cap south Calgary development.

Our city sprawls 27km from the core south. East portion of our city is the least developed.

One of the biggest problems with these "towns" and soon to be cities, in particular Okotoks is the dependance on Calgary infrastructure & resources, despite the fact that their property taxes don't support Calgary.

Okotoks doesn't have a water supply to support their growth and until recently was capped @ 30,000. Now they uncapped it and are proposing an $80m pipeline from Calgary to Okotoks so they can use our water source, all the while remaining as a separate town. It is quite shocking how close Okotoks is to our most southern neighborhood "Legacy".

Supposedly this is all acceptable though as they are part of the Calgary regional plan yet some cities have since opted out and are considering opting out(Airdrie). This makes future cooperation not necessarily very cooperative.

So long as Okotoks (and other users) pay for the infrastructure and water, like they are proposing, what is the problem?
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Old Posted Oct 2, 2014, 8:46 PM
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Originally Posted by MichaelS View Post
So long as Okotoks (and other users) pay for the infrastructure and water, like they are proposing, what is the problem?
They still use up finite Calgary parking and public transit, during a time when transit funding is scarce and transit is crowded, I don't see how we can continue to subsidize these towns without toll roads.
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Old Posted Oct 2, 2014, 10:55 PM
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They still use up finite Calgary parking and public transit, during a time when transit funding is scarce and transit is crowded, I don't see how we can continue to subsidize these towns without toll roads.
I'm quite happy to "subsidize" these towns (I actually pay taxes). I Certainly don't want to pay a toll every time I go to the British Chippy or The Saskatoon farm or d'Arcy Ranch or High River or Turner Valley or Longview.....
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Old Posted Oct 3, 2014, 1:19 PM
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Edmonton here.

Welcome to our life for the last 40-60 years.

Annex them now while you can!
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Old Posted Oct 3, 2014, 1:33 PM
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The problem is that none of them currently connect to our urban area. I think at this point, annexing Chestermere might be a mistake. Annexing Airdrie at this point would be too, as it's even farther away than Chestermere, however, waiting longer might make it too late to annex Airdrie, as they will easily hit 100 000 people in the 2020s.
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Old Posted Oct 3, 2014, 2:57 PM
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I don't understand this desire to annex. Don't we often lament the fact that sprawl never pays for itself, etc... Why would we want to suddenly become responsible for so much more of it? Let those cities/towns grow the way they are, and deal with their own problems.

So they come in and work/use our services. That is a good thing. Commercial properties pay much, much higher taxes, and as a result Calgary is probably way better off financially for this. So long as we retain the commercial side of things, let the residential get developed elsewhere, especially when it is in such a form to be long term financially detrimental.

I am concerned about the huge growth in industrial/commercial properties in and around Balzac, and Edmonton certainly has this issue in spades with Nisku, however for Calgary right now we don't have that much to worry about.
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Old Posted Oct 3, 2014, 3:08 PM
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I agree. Calgary's Unicity strategy has worked great up until now, but let's be friggin honest here... we currently have 220 km2 of undeveloped land within the border of our city. That is enough land to hold the entire city of Kitchener (220 000 people). Let's worry about that first, and expand our borders again once that is full in 10 or 15 years.
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Old Posted Oct 3, 2014, 10:33 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joe498 View Post
Calgary should annex Chestermere and cap south Calgary development.

Our city sprawls 27km from the core south. East portion of our city is the least developed.
So in order for Calgary to stop its sprawl it should sprawl in another direction?

Quote:
One of the biggest problems with these "towns" and soon to be cities, in particular Okotoks is the dependance on Calgary infrastructure & resources, despite the fact that their property taxes don't support Calgary.

Okotoks doesn't have a water supply to support their growth and until recently was capped @ 30,000. Now they uncapped it and are proposing an $80m pipeline from Calgary to Okotoks so they can use our water source, all the while remaining as a separate town. It is quite shocking how close Okotoks is to our most southern neighborhood "Legacy".
It's not as though Calgary has more water because of some miracle of Calgarian ingenuity that secured a more stable supply than the Sheep River; Calgary merely has far more capacity left on its existing water licences on the Bow. Calgary uses its near-monopoly on remaining water allowed to be drawn from the Bow to dictate policy in the region.

And it's not as though Okotoks just sprang up overnight: it's been there for 110 years. Let's not forget that it's CALGARY'S fault that Okotoks is now "shockingly close". Calgary is the municipality that has ballooned, not Okotoks.

Quote:
Supposedly this is all acceptable though as they are part of the Calgary regional plan yet some cities have since opted out and are considering opting out(Airdrie). This makes future cooperation not necessarily very cooperative.
It's already not 'cooperative'. The Calgary Regional Partnership's governance structure requires any motion that is to be carried to have the support of more than half of the municipalities, representing at least half of the total population of the region. Being that Calgary has well over half of the population on its own it gives Calgary de facto veto power over all policy. The terms of the deal give Calgary almost all of the power. I'm amazed that the only jurisdictions that have left the CRP are High River, Crossfield and the surrounding MDs.

Last edited by 93JC; Oct 4, 2014 at 6:36 PM.
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Old Posted Oct 4, 2014, 4:20 PM
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About the only places near Calgary that will be annexed in the near future are De Winton, Indus, Conrich, Delacour and maybe Balzac (iffy).

Shepherd was probably the last official annexed municipality of any size.

Okotoks, Airdrie, Chestermere, Cochrane and even Langdon won't ever be annexed - they're already too large (or will be in the case of Langdon in the future) and have too much of their own identity too ever submit to annexation pressures.
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Old Posted Oct 9, 2014, 11:46 AM
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Originally Posted by Chadillaccc View Post
I agree. Calgary's Unicity strategy has worked great up until now, but let's be friggin honest here... we currently have 220 km2 of undeveloped land within the border of our city. That is enough land to hold the entire city of Kitchener (220 000 people). Let's worry about that first, and expand our borders again once that is full in 10 or 15 years.
The borough of Manhattan occupies 87km2. If Calgary has 220km2 of undeveloped land then the city should be able to double in population easily without annexing any more land.

Density is the name of the game.
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