Hawkridge asks for narrow lots
First reading of a bylaw that would amend the Land Use Bylaw to allow some narrow lot homes with front-attached garages in the Hawkridge development was passed during the regular Penhold town council meeting Dec. 17.
ìHawkridge would like to have some of those lots backing onto Highway 42,î said Tricia Willis, planning and development officer for the town.
The report to council said those homes would be laneless because the highway is right there.
Coun. Heather Klein was concerned the addition of more lots would affect the water management plan Hawkridge has in place.
ìThat's going to throw that whole water management plan out the window Ö that's going to change their whole scope,î she said.
Council passed first reading unanimously. A public hearing is scheduled for Jan. 14 at 5:45 p.m.
Interim budget passed
As the final budget continues to be hammered out, council passed an interim operations and maintenance budget for 2013.
The interim budget is equal to 50 per cent of the 2012 operations and maintenance budget revenues. The revenues totalled just over $3 million.
The next public budget meeting is scheduled to be held Jan. 21.
School confusion
Mayor Dennis Cooper's report to council said there's some ìchallenging issuesî regarding the construction of the new high school in Penhold.
He said there's been renewed discussions over two issues ñ the fire escape, which has been dealt with, and the matter of where the school is going to attach to the multiplex.
CAO Rick Binnendyk's written report said the town had thought the building was meant to be attached on the north side of the gym to the arena but that plan seems to have ìdropped offî during the bidding process.
Cooper said he and Binnendyk have had a meeting with Alberta Infrastructure and the education ministry as well as ABC Corporation, the group in charge of building the school.
ìAt the present time the school board has to answer some questions,î he said, adding that would help move forward in discussions.
Speed concerns
A report from the town's community peace officer led to council asking administration to look into having a speed monitoring device installed on Highway 2A for a few weeks to get a sense of when and how badly drivers are speeding.
Dana Jones' written report said she'd done some manual monitoring and hadn't found excessive speeds along Penhold's main corridor. Council decided they wanted more data as they continued to express concerns about speeding through town.
