The Town of Olds hopes to be part of any solution between Mountain View County and the Netook Crossing developers, say town officials.
Representatives from the development were at the town's policies and priorities meeting last week, pitching the idea that the town annex the land the development is on so that ProDev can continue with the estimated $30 million it has already sunk into the project.
Since the county revised its Municipal Development Plan earlier this year and repealed the development's concept plan, ProDev is now looking at all options, including getting the town to annex the area and taking the county to court.
“I think that the Town of Olds is going to be part of any scenario on a go-forward basis and I think where we ended up today is the town, the developers and the county have to sit down and jointly determine what that best way forward is for that development,” said Norm McInnis, the town's chief administrative officer.
McInnis said the suggestion by the developer that the town annex the area is likely not going to proceed. The town recently completed an annexation of six quarter sections of land in 2007 that will serve the town's needs for several years to come.
“It's a pretty tall order that an annexation application would be successful,” he said.
Mayor Judy Dahl reiterated McInnis's view that the town needs to work cooperatively with both the county and the developer on solving outstanding issues.
“We do have inter-muncipal (Memoranda of Agreements) set. The reeve of Mountain View County has stated that their intention is to work with us and we're going to make that decision to (negotiate) first,” she said, noting the town would put its interests first.
Dahl said council has not discussed the possibility of annexing the area, as the developer suggested.
“That is something that council perhaps will revisit in the future … if the three-way partnership doesn't work, but today, it hasn't been put on the table,” she said.
