Reddy, who moved to the 'Hat from Fort McMurray, understands a little about moving building activity along.
His department is currently working through the introduction of a new municipal development blueprint for the city, as well as the new land-use bylaw. The overarching MDP, known as the Medicine Hat Plan, has already been to the city's planning commission and will now undergo scrutiny from the public and city council. It may well pass from talk to action this year.
The document focuses on expanding industrial development in the city, as well as adding residential density.
Industrial
"We're going to put a lot more emphasis on the industrial sector, the area around the Canadian Fertilizer site, as our future employment growth area," Reddy explained.
The area immediately around the fertilizer plant site in the city's north end is not likely to attract housing or retail but is seen as vital for industrial businesses, everything from manufacturing to staging yards for the energy and transportation sectors.
Industry-wise, there's been a silver lining for Medicine Hat in the cloud of lagging gas prices. Multinational giant Enerflex re-opened its mothballed Medicine Hat methanol plant last year because lower gas prices improved the plant's competitiveness.
The plan
The Medicine Hat Plan envisions a greener city with more than 100,000 residents in 2060 - up from 60,000 today. The plan also calls for more compact neighbourhoods, "sensitive infill," greater reliance on "alternative energy, from solar and wind" and the usual utopian-style boilerplate. But it backs up the platitudes with some hard numbers and a respect to market realities.
The housing-density scheme envisions up to 17 homes packed into each hectare - twice the current average in Alberta cities - but Reddy admits this could be a hard sell in a car-loving Prairie city that covers more than 11,200 hectares.
"Market demand will have a say in how neighbourhoods are built or redeveloped," Reddy said.
Still, he notes, some of the city's existing subdivisions already sport housing densities higher than that benchmark.
Medicine Hat should have no problem meeting demand for land, at least for the short term. "Right now we're in the enviable position of having enough lots in inventory and approved for about 2,600 more people," with land already zoned to accommodate up to 10,000 more, Reddy said.
Stable growth
While the 'Hat hasn't boomed by Alberta standards, it saw a 21.8 per cent hike in population for the 10-year period ending in 2009, or an average growth rate of about 2.2 per cent.
Much of the city's population growth has come from people moving in from Saskatchewan, which is very closeby, but city officials wonder if that will continue as the Saskatchewan economy continues to improve.
The biggest growth pressure in Medicine Hat has been on the south end of the city, with residential and commercial developments part of the mix. They've both led to some congestion along the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) through the city, but the province has announced plans to build a long-awaited interchange at the TCH and Dunmore Road, and that's seen as a big plus in the battle against traffic problems in the southeast. The project is going to tender in 2012, with completion likely in 2014.
The provincial government is also spending to redevelop the city's existing regional hospital, under an ongoing $200 million budget.
Meanwhile, CFB Suffield and British Army training bases pump an estimated $60 million into the local economy each year.
Downtown drag
The long-planned redevelopment of Medicine Hat's historic downtown has been largely a miss to date, something Reddy is quick to acknowledge.
"There's been a lot of dancing around, but the numbers haven't been right [for investors], and we need the growth to spur it on," he said of the potential downtown makeover.
The city thought it had landed a developer to move ahead with a major office and mixed-use development on what's known as the Glanville site downtown, but that fizzled this spring when River City Development Corp. nixed a plan for a seven-storey tower on the vacant site near City Hall.
Mayor Norm Boucher called the setback unfortunate, but said development of the property "remains a high priority of council, and we will discuss the next steps in ensuring its development."
The collapse of the project signalled there's not sufficient appetite for Class A office space priced higher above existing lease rates in the city right now.
March did bring some positive news for the region's alternative energy industry - approval of a major transmission line to hook up the Wild Rose wind-generation projects being developed by Calgary-based NaturEner. The approval moves two large wind-power projects in surrounding Cypress County closer to reality.
Retail action is focused on the south end of town, where merchants have been willing to pay rents in the $25-to-$30-per-square-foot range annually for the right locations.
Housing
Jeff Lanigan, the new president of the Medicine Hat Real Estate Board, sees a steady upturn in the housing market. After a tough year in 2011, he said, there's fresh demand in the sector right now, with home prices edging up early in 2012. In the first three months home sales were up 23 per cent to 334 units, and total sales values jumped an impressive 22.5 per cent to $81.1 million.
from Western Investor May 2012
