Mayor highlights long-term planning accomplishments

This story is one of a series focusing on St. Albert council members' accomplishments and challenges and what their priorities are for the remaining year.
For Mayor Nolan Crouse, the biggest accomplishments this city council has achieved relates to long-term planning for the community.

He points to the completion of several long-term master plans, such as the social master plan, the cultural master plan and the smart city master plan, as examples this council has established as a vision for the city's future since being elected in 2013.

“All those long-term plans, and I think there's a dozen or so, that have been put in place all set the stage for good planning into the decades ahead,” he said.

Crouse acknowledged the work on establishing those plans began under the previous council, but noted this council pushed them forward “in a significant way.”

He noted his own personal achievements on council, as the chief elected official, are all along the same lines – pushing for the long-term plans to come forward.

“I think it's related to this, because it's really pushing governance policy, vision, and planning process forward,” he said.

Crouse said this council made significant progress on several specific projects, like the Jensen Lakes Area Structure Plan, the completion of the renovations to Red Willow Place and the completion of Ray Gibbon Drive Phase 3 as big achievements, but said they pale in comparison to long-term planning.

“I look at them as important, but I don't look at them as being as significant as it is setting in place proper policy and proper governance structure in the long-term,” he said.

This is not to say there haven't been some challenges.

Crouse said his priorities for the remaining 11 months of this council's term have to do with tying up loose ends to set the stage for the city's development in the next decade and beyond. One specific example he offered was long-term capital planning.

“We've highlighted the challenges and the issues of the next significant capital needs,” he said. “There really hasn't been a good understanding in the past of what order we need to do what in, and there's still a lot of work to do.”

The work, perhaps most significantly, will include figuring out how to pay for the projects slated for the next decade. The long-term capital growth budget shows a projected deficit of $310 million over 10 years.

On top of that, there will be decisions about where to locate several of the facilities that will be needed in near future. Crouse said this is why he feels establishing a corporate land strategy is crucial.

“What we've done is a poor job of landing on a real long-term land strategy for another fire hall, etc., for future recreation facilities,” he said.

In terms of priorities he would like this council to be able to address within the final year of this term, he said there's a lot of work left to do in order to ensure continued growth in the city.

A major piece of this will be Project 9, a trunk sewer line on which much development in the city's west end depends.

“There has to be clarity brought to the west side of St. Albert,” Crouse said. Along this same vein, he said he hopes to see this council continue working on a strategy for the Employment Lands, a 618-acre parcel of land on the western edge of the city. The land is located west of Ray Gibbon Drive, between Giroux Road and McKenney Avenue.

Likewise he said he hopes to see development continue to the north along St. Albert Trail, and said this council will have to work hard to come to an agreement with Sturgeon County about land annexation.

“I feel very good about us being able to probably have some sort of a signed agreement with the county on a boundary adjustment plan,” he said.