Town councillor Patrick Wilson is determined to ensure growth is paying for itself. It's something that has concerned him since first elected in 2017 and has become even more of a focus in his current second term.
Wilson believes the completion of a fiscal health analysis approved by town council last week is worth the $100,000 price tag, even if it's an unbudgeted expense. He believes it will pay for itself by allowing the town to be better informed of how its decisions impact the long-term fiscal health of the municipality.
Council agreed and voted unanimously to provide the funding.
Town councillor Patrick Wilson. (file photo)Wilson calls it an opportunity to exit the "development treadmill."
"I'm talking about making sure that growth is not a net negative on current residents of Cochrane. Essentially, each new resident moving to town should not make current residents who live here worse off," said Wilson.
"Many of us have had the thought while sitting in log jam traffic, for example, of how did we get to this point where we don't want Cochrane to grow, where new residents aren't making current residents better off, or at least net neutral, and how do we get there?"
After a brief break, the town resumed its rapid growth in 2022. The population grew by 4.4 per cent in 2022 and its population is forecasted to potentially climb to 86,500 in 25 years.
Urban3 will be undertaking complex municipal economic analysis through geospatial modeling. Town CAO Mike Derricott says the resulting data will assist the municipality in making better decisions.
"Those decisions then continue to improve, and so Urban 3 proposes a system where they use data from maps, economic analysis, public policy, and urban design to provide robust data set that will allow us to understand revenue modeling," Derricott explained. "It will help identify the most and least financially productive areas within town."
It is based upon an idea brought forward by Wilson during council's strategic retreat in March.
He wants the town to be armed with data to determine if a development is financially solvent, although he notes that's not the sole consideration, and its impact looking at it in a 50-year time horizon. He says there is a large cash infusion at the start, but what is the cost over the long term?
"That's exactly what this consultant's map would help show us. It would help us plan for our future development the way that we want to develop in Cochrane and hopefully exit the development treadmill, which I believe, through whatever decisions we've made in the past, put us in sticky situations. I'd like to just make better decisions in the future."
The red flag went up for Wilson when he was told by a past CAO that if the town stopped growing it would face financial difficulties.
"We have to continue moving like a shark or we die, and that's not a sustainable model. There has to be some different way to do this."
Derriocott estimates it will take upwards of a year to complete the analysis. It was not included in the town's 2023 budget and will be funded through operational reserves.
Tue, May 21, 2:00 PM
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