Civil and Municipal - Mar 2023

128 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 4, ISSUE 3 brownfields, and the town is in discussions about an incentive program to entice developers to want to rehabilitate and develop on other brownfield sites. Williams notes that the town also has 3 EV charging stations, with more on the horizon. Over the last decade, Olds has also regionalized their drinking water and wastewater. Williams explains, “Since Olds is part of the Red Deer River watersheds the quantity and quality of water is always top of mind. So, wastewater goes to the city of Red Deer for treatment as part of a regional wastewater commission so as to not have a significant burden with wastewater lagoons across our countryside. And for drinking water, the same thing, our water comes from the Red Deer River, and is treated outside of Red Deer and sent south to us.” Moving forward, Blyth says the town of Olds will see a continued focus on investment attraction, working with local and regional partners to move forward with an economic growth strategy. As for the many advantages of investing in Olds, she highlights, “This community has really been a community of forward-thinking and innovation. When you talk about some of the key assets here, we were the first community in Canada to own its own fiber line, O-Net. We also have Mountain View Power, which is a community- owned power retailer. Very uniquely, the town of Olds was one of the first Fairtrade communities in Canada, meaning we look to support products that come into our community and into our businesses that are ethically developed and traded globally. From a competitive advantage standpoint, the town of Olds is in a very promising location. We have off-site levies that are likely the cheapest anywhere in Canada.” “Our development fees are also extremely low, and we have the lowest taxation in comparable sized communities in the province right now. We have launched both a non-residential and residential incentive program to attract investment and multi-use development in the community, and with that, we’re also in the process of doing a residential market assessment to attach to that incentive to attract those investors,” Blyth concludes. PREFERRED VENDOR/PARTNER n Digestco www.digestco.com n O-Net www.o-net.ca