Alberta

Suburban home developers in Alberta's largest city are looking at a year with a lot of questions ahead. While Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

The Alberta government has changed the regulations relating to the granting of development permits by municipalities - a change that should make permits easier to come by.

Hopes that Fort Macleod will become home to Alberta's only dedicated police college got a boost in late November when officials in that southern Alberta community reported positive discussions with the provincial government about funding schemes for

The City of Cold Lake has broken ground on a new arena/event venue that will be part of the existing Cold Lake Energy Centre.

Big-city housing prices continue to stagnate in Alberta. The Realtors Association of Edmonton reported in early December that the average selling price of a single-family home in that city was down 0.5 per cent in November from a month earlier and 2.

One of them, Trican Well Service Ltd., employs about 125 staff locally, explains Brad Kungle, base manager of the company in Hinton. Kungle estimates Trican's Hinton location may have 140 employees by the end of January.

"If they're trying to encourage housing affordability, dropping everything on the doorstep of a new homebuyer is not the way to do it," Flynn said.

Housing prices in Alberta's two big cities fell noticeably in October, providing a pointed reminder about the sometimes-fragile state of the economic recovery. In Edmonton, the average price of a single-family home fell to $365,691.

With incumbent Mayor Stephen Mandel re-elected and driving Edmonton's civic agenda, Edmonton city council is reaching out to the public for input on a proposed downtown arena complex and entertainment district.

Many of the same Alberta city names are once again prominently featured in a list of Canada's top entrepreneurial cities, as selected by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB).