town & city profiles
Medicine Hat
Size helps Medicine Hat in tough times
Medicine Hat News
In a year of economic uncertainty, the city of Medicine Hat’s best asset may have been its size.
Mayor Norm Boucher says residents of the province’s sixth largest city banded together during the recession, showing a community spirit larger urban centres can’t match.
“Because we're a bit smaller it might be easier to start something or help somewhere, maybe get a little bit of help,” he says, pointing to the swell of support community and charity organizations received in 2009.
“When you live in large cities you don't have that and your quality of life is very different. You become a number in a mass population.”
That being said, Boucher believes this city of over 60,000 is set to grow, possibly doubling in population in the coming decades.
The city sits on a large natural gas reserve, which has provided relatively low-cost heat and electricity to residents for the past 100 years. When demand on the grid is low, electricity is sold to other communities, providing the city with an additional revenue source.
Consistently low property tax rates, low crime rates and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the
province also make Medicine Hat attractive to new residents, Boucher says.
With expansion in mind, Boucher says he and aldermen Ted Clugston, Robert Dumanowski, Julie Friesen, John Hamill, Graham Kelly, Ty Schneider, Jeremy Thompson and Jamie White will have to focus on maintaining Medicine Hat’s affordability and character as the city develops.
The city has promoted greater use of alternative energy in recent years, installing solar panels at the Family Leisure Centre, for instance, which Boucher says will help conserve natural gas resources. A recent update of the city transit system also saw bus services increase on weekends and holidays.
Access to water has also been an issue. Originally, Boucher says, the city was not sure it would be able to access enough to grow the town past 90,000 people, or bring industries to the area that rely heavily on water, such as vegetable processing.
The city has discussed the issues with Alberta Environment over the past year and, Boucher says, reached a "good understanding."
“We could grow, with what we have now, to a population of 250 to 300 thousand,” he says. “Without that we would be limited."
Medicine Hat News
For the town of Redcliff, 2009 was a year of expansion in the most literal sense. After two years of planning the community annexed almost 1,900 acres of land from Cypress County, adding two new subdivisions to the north and west of the town and over 100 residents to its population.
It’s a “win-win” situation, says Mayor Robert Hazelaar. The town of Redcliff can supply services to the new areas with greater ease, and in return secures new lands needed for commercial and residential growth.
"That'll be our future,” he says. “It should do us for the next forty years, if our growth rate stays the same."
Though it’s named after the red shale cliffs near the South Saskatchewan River, the town’s abundant natural gas reserves earned it the nickname “Smokeless Pittsburgh” at the turn of the 20th century.
Since then, a combination of plentiful sunlight, cheap natural gas and access to the Trans-Canada Highway have led to a new moniker for this town of approximately 5,000: “Greenhouse Capital of the Prairies.” Redcliff is home to over 50 acres of commercial greenhouses, producing cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.
"I've had lots of people come and say they really enjoy this town,” says Hazelaar, when asked what attracts residents to Redcliff. “With a smaller community you get to know more people, traffic isn't quite as bad."
After spending much of 2009 working on a new residential subdivision, Hazelaar said the community is looking forward to slow but steady growth. With the slowing of the oilfield industry - one of Redcliff’s major economic contributors - he expects it will be a few years before the town returns to the growth rate it saw in earlier years.
In the meantime, he and town councillors Don Nunweiler, Chere Brown, Dwight Nagel, Jim Steinke, Eric Solberg and Dwight Kilpatrick will focus on upgrading the town’s water treatment system, possibly by building a new plant to service the town.
A $3 million dollar police station, to house the community’s RCMP detachment, is also slated for completion this fall.
2 — REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA 2010 ■ Celebrating our Community
Redcliff
Redcliff expands in 2009
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