St. Albert has completed several large projects on schedule this year and several are on track for completion by year-end.
Council got an update on the status of several ongoing projects at the Aug. 29 meeting, accepting the report for information. Interim city manager Chris Jardine spoke about the progress of several major projects in during the second quarter of 2016.
He listed a half-dozen major projects that had been completed and already presented to council, representing a significant amount of work from city staff, including several green initiatives.
On May 16, council approved both the Green Gas Local Action Plan and a green-energy generation investigation, both of which identified potential for grant funding that may be available for municipal projects.
“The city is in a good position to move forward on green-energy retrofits for some of its existing facilities,” Jardine said.
The Air Quality Monitoring Station was installed in April and opened June 8 with much fanfare, including a visit from the provincial environment minister and local elementary students.
In addition, both the transportation master plan and an update to the capital project management policy were approved April 18.
Jardine identified several projects that are well underway, and which administration will report to council about in the coming months.
These include updates on the St. Albert Youth Council, completion of a downtown parking technical study, establishing an advocacy plan for Ray Gibbon Drive including a review of a provincial traffic-modeling study. Regular updates are expected on the city’s corporate land strategy, and changing the organic waste-collection process at city facilities.
Jardine also identified ongoing work with respect to a potential amalgamation of transit-operating services between St. Albert and Edmonton – a preliminary report exploring the possibility came to council earlier this year, and work continues.
“A second report outlining the structure of a new operating entity, and a recommendation to continue with a more detailed cost-benefit analysis was approved by both councils, with more to come next month,” Jardine said.
But not all of the city’s projects are running on track and without a hitch.
“There are some projects that have suffered some challenges, setbacks and delays,” he said.
Jardine did not describe what had gone wrong in each of the projects, but provided a list of a dozen projects. They include city emergency plans, updates to the downtown area redevelopment plan, an asset-management framework, offsite levy policies, the downtown parking technical study, signage reviews, the urban village guidelines and an advocacy strategy for the city’s government relations program.
He further identified several projects set to get underway this month, with council getting a look at the Smart City Master Plan on Sept. 6, the stormwater rate model coming Sept. 12, and Employment Lands development principles coming later this month.
