St. Albert’s very future as an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable community is at stake on Monday night when city council finally debates the Future Industrial Lands Requirement Study, commissioned by St. Albert Business and Tourism Development. Failing to act on the dire and succinct warnings contained within the report will erase any hope this city has of ever righting the economic ship and residents will bear the consequences in the form of sky-high tax bills.
The report’s contents are clear and undeniable — St. Albert needs more industrial land. While everyone seems to pay lip service to the idea of diversifying the city’s economic base, no one to date has taken any sustainable action because as a whole, council and administration lack the type of long-term planning, business-thinking staff that could help correct this unpalatable situation. The planning department’s own estimates — that the city has enough industrial land to last 100 years — seem completely unreasonable given what this study says. We have a grand total of 67 net hectares of land designated for light industrial use. This report says we need a total of 362 hectares over 25 years in order to meet industry demands for a five-year supply of shovel-ready land of different lot sizes that can accommodate different businesses. That will require some serious thinking about the zoning of available lands we already have or, as city manager Bill Holtby put last month, an annexation. And we all remember how well the last one went.
Meanwhile, as council fails to adequately instruct administration on how to make St. Albert more attractive to light industry, Edmonton is eating the city’s lunch. Just look east or south and you’ll see a regional shopping centre going up on one side and a light industrial site on the other. Edmonton has the kind of sound, long-term vision that gives its planning department the intestinal fortitude to say no when a residential builder comes looking for a zoning change for lands designated as non-residential. Repeated experiences here in St. Albert have proved this city does not have that type of mindset.
The most glaring item that was surprisingly included in the report is the reference to a necessary change at every single level in city hall in order to turn this city’s progress around. “There must first be an attitude change that industrial development is important to the community’s sustainability.” No report recently received by council has ever spoken words more fundamentally true. Local businesspeople will quickly relate stories of their frustrations in dealing with city hall when it comes to construction or expansion. There are businesses that have left or are about to leave St. Albert because there isn’t land available for expansion or there is simply too much red tape. What continues to elude this city is that these businesses don’t just bring their tax revenue with them, they also bring jobs for local residents. And in this time when we live mere minutes from a major ring road connected to the province’s capital city, the potential for non-residential growth has never been higher.
The biggest unanswered question is why this report does not ask for any recommended locations in its conclusion, a mention that would seem logical for such an undertaking. Instead the report is being referred to the planning department — the same office telling council we have 100 years of light industrial land — to determine the best possible sites. And we apparently won’t even hear back from them until the end of the year.
Our city needs a long-term vision for itself and a commitment to it that can’t be easily swayed. It needs the right people in place and the right organizational structure to make or recommend business decisions that can help make St. Albert an easier place to live and work. And finally, it needs to get everyone in St. Albert Place working from the same playbook. Failing to act on this report will be the equivalent of giving up on the city’s future.
