Customers and residents in Uptowne can expect some changes in snow clearing rules and policy as a result of a meeting between Uptowne and town representatives.
Snow routes will be set up in town — including Uptowne — and signs regarding those routes will be posted — likely by around February.
Also by around that time, brochures will be drawn up by the town in concert with Uptowne reps. Those pamphlets will warn people who park in Uptowne that they can only park there for two hours, otherwise, they face the prospect of having their vehicles towed away.
If they want to park longer, they can park in either one of the two public parking lots — across the tracks at 50th Street or behind Sim's Furniture, where vehicles can remain for 72 hours before facing the possibility of being towed away.
On Dec. 21, the town's chief administrative officer Michael Merritt, along with director of community services Doug Wagstaff and director of operations Scott Chant met with Uptowne Olds chair Leon Durand and fellow Uptowne Olds rep Murray Elliott, along with local lawyer Terry Cody and Uptowne businessman Drew Marceton, as well as Olds & District Chamber of Commerce executive director Caroline Bodmer.
"I think, from my understanding, both parties left pleased with the discussion and the ability to move forward with hopefully improving the snow clearing in the Uptowne in the new year," Merritt said.
During an interview with the Albertan, Merritt agreed that while streets leading to and from the hospital and fire hall are obvious top priorities for snow clearing, "Uptowne is a priority too, so it's not like we're going to change that.
"We have different pieces of equipment for different areas of the town to begin with and we need to have emergency response as a top priority. They are fine with that; they understand it," he added.
"It's just making sure that we basically have a timely response to snow in the downtown so we don't impact commerce."
Merritt said the plan is to clear Uptowne streets of snow within 24 hours. In the wake of a snowfall during the Dec. 1-2 weekend, some Uptowne streets weren't plowed for three days or so.
That led to complaints by several Uptowne business people and an appearance by 10 of them at a town policies and priorities meeting on Dec. 17.
That appearance in turn led to the decisions taken during the Dec. 21 meeting between town and Uptowne reps.
Durand likes the snow route idea and the plan to create brochures to warn people about the rules.
"There are some people who are — what would you call them? Habitual parkers in the Uptowne," he said.
"You know, either they work in the Uptowne but they're parking on the main street instead of the parking lots or they'll be living in one of the upstairs suites and parking on the main street. Some of these people don't move their vehicle for days."
He thinks brochures pointing out that Uptowne is a snow route and that there are other places to park will help.
"If you've got half a dozen vehicles parked on one side of the road, well how much snow can you remove? And even after you move the vehicles, the snow's still there," he said.
"So that was one of the things that I thought was quite positive was to have this pamphlet put together that we can tell people about.
"They would give them the ability then to say, 'you know, it's a snow route. If there's a snow event and you don't remove your vehicle before 4 o'clock in the morning, (your vehicle) could be towed and ticketed and you'll have to pay for the tow job.'"
Durand's understanding is the changes will take effect by February "if not before."
"We would need to design and order the new snow route signs so that would take time," Merritt said.
Durand said he too is pleased with the outcome of the meeting.
"The town is working with us and that's kind of what we're there for to take any concerns to the town council and the CAO and whatnot to see if we can't rectify the problem or be part of the solution. And that's what we did," he said.
