Industrial development may be a tough sell, but the City of St. Albert isn’t about to join our neighbours to the south in getting into the business, officials said this week.
City manager Bill Holtby, general manager of business and strategic services Jennifer Jennax and director of corporate communications Maya Pungur-Buick met with the Gazette editorial board Wednesday afternoon to answer a range of questions, many of which had to do with industrial land in the city.
And while the City of Edmonton is heavily involved in land development, especially in industrial areas being prepared along 142 Street just south of St. Albert, local officials say they’re not about to dive in as well.
“As we evolved into Campbell North,” Holtby said, referring to the last time the city tried to develop a high-tech business park, “we found we don’t have the depth and expertise, and we’re not large enough to create a development department. … We think the private sector should drive that.”
That said, though, Holtby wouldn’t rule out partnering with private enterprise to get things rolling faster.
“One thing I’ve heard from the development community is that, with the cost of servicing right now, there needs to be some incentives or some front-ending that can be paid back at a later date. So a joint venture would be a possibility,” he said.
“I wouldn’t want to put the community as risk, though, either,” he added. “It’s a challenge. We want to invest in it and grow the non-residential side, but on the same hand, we don’t want to be the ones with vacant lots for 25 years and have them worth five cents on the dollar.”
The amount and location of light industrial land has been a bone of contention in the community for many years, but Jennax and Holtby said they want to be very careful where it goes.
“For us, it’s ensuring that the needs of business are met — good roads, transportation, in-out, the basic needs for any kind of light industrial development,” Jennax said. “To put it somewhere where we don’t have transportation routes in and out doesn’t make any sense.”
“We can’t just draw some colours on a map and assume it’s going to be OK,” Holtby added.
In the end, though, Jennax said one of her main goals is to create jobs in St. Albert so residents need not commute to Edmonton each day.
“I believe we need to address jobs for everybody, not just the younger demographic,” she said. “The more we can have people working in St. Albert living in St. Albert, the better off we are. One of our goals is to have 20,000 jobs in St. Albert by 2024.”
Part of creating those jobs, though, is the ability to convey a business-friendly attitude, something the city has been criticized for not doing in recent years.
“You’ve got a unique situation where we’re both the sales arm of the organization — so we’re trying to attract business to the community — but then we’re also the regulatory arm, so we have to enforce council’s bylaws and all those regulations associated with doing business in town,” Holtby said. “The devil’s in the details.”
He noted that new businesses have to fit in with those already established and city departments could do a better job communicating with each other.
However, the recent firing of Larry Horncastle, the director of business and tourism development, has been roundly panned by the local business community.
“Larry served the community very well with the local business community, building the local business community. But we believe that we need to go further afield to bring on something like the Rampart that you have on the other side of 142 Street,” Holtby said.
“We need someone with the skill set, the talent and the connections to bring groups like those into the community.”
The search has started for Horncastle’s replacement, and the city has a very clear idea what sort of qualifications and characteristics that person will have.
“This person will have considerable experience in management, in working in either economic development or, at minimum, have responsibilities related to economic development,” Jennax said.
The earliest a replacement would likely be in place is the middle of November, she said.
“Most likely this individual works for government already so they have a really good understanding of what we need as a municipality. They’ll have a solid understanding of land use needs,” she said.
“[They also need] the capability to shift from ‘Sorry, we don’t have any of that,’ to ‘How can I juggle this to give you what you need?’” Holtby added.
