When Chestermere graduated into city status in January of this year, many wondered what this would mean for our community. At first glance, over the past 9 months, some would say nothing has changed. But behind the scenes, City of Chestermere staff and council have been involved in many exciting and big projects for our city.
During the weeks before moving ahead with the application for city status, many councillors and city staff mentioned in their discussions with residents that becoming a city would put Chestermere more on the map in the business community and that by bringing more business to Chestermere, it would increase our non-residential tax base which was a fairly significant factor in the city status decision. This week’s announcement definitely backs that statement up.
On Thursday September 10th, a press conference was held at the City of Chestermere Municipal Building where Mayor Patricia Matthews announced that earlier in the spring, the City of Chestermere purchased 101 acres of land in the SE of Chestermere on RR 240.
This specific piece of land is the only piece of developable land the City owns and any return on investment will contribute to the costs of amenities and services for residents. With their currently being no light industrial areas available for investors/companies in Chestermere and no current or future plans to add light industrial by any developers, it is felt that this new area will be very attractive to many businesses/investors.
“Chestermere residents have told us that we need to create our own destiny and write our own story of who we are as a community,” said Mayor Patricia Matthews. “In order to do that and preserve our identity we need to diversify our tax base. This give us the chance to do that.”
In a media release from the City of Chestermere, they stated that more than two thirds of Chestermeres working population are comminuting somewhere other than Chestermere to work and many of our local businesses are struggling to remain profitable. It is anticipated that adding this light industrial development will ease the burden on taxpayers, provide between 500 to 1,500 local jobs, reduce the percentage of residents who must commute and help local businesses thrive.
“Having strong diversity of non-residential development is essential to the health and sustainability of a community,” said Chestermere’s Economic Development Manager, Jean-Marc Lacasse. “We have already experienced significant interest from major enterprises looking to find a new location,” said Lacasse. “With the ability to develop this land ourselves, we will now be able to welcome new sectors into the community and ensure we are sustainable for the future.”
Lacasse has also confirmed that since Thursday’s announcement, the phones in the development offices have been ringing with very interested businesses and investors. “We are open for those conversations and want to speak to anyone who is interested in bringing business to this space,” commented Mayor Matthews.
The City of Chestermere provided some additional information regarding what the hopes are for this large parcel of land. This new development is considered to be a pretty hot commodity with excellent access to the Trans-Canada Highway, Calgary International Airport and the CN Logistics Park. Additionally with their being no business license tax, an available workforce, competitive tax rates and a pretty amazing community in which to work, live and play have all made for great arguments of why businesses, some large businesses, are showing a huge interest in Chestermere.
The land will be developed for 1-5 acre lots for light industrial and commercial businesses. Professional and technical businesses, distribution and logistics, research and development and manufacturing (small scale indoor production) are amongst the type of business that the city is looking for to move into the space. Large ‘smoke stack’ type businesses or outdoor storage facilities will not be part of this development and the City will continue to uphold it’s very high standards and architectural controls for this area and ensure that it visibly fits in with the character of Chestermere.
Over the next two years, the City will actively pursue the regular development process and that all starts with the ASP (Area Structure Plan). The City anticipates that it will start selling lots in the next 1-2 years and anticipates that full development of this area will take 5-10 years and could also bring with it 500-1500 jobs for Chestermere residents.
