The City of Prince Albert is looking to initiate an annexation of 44 acres of the Rural Municipality of Prince Albert in order to extend Byars Street to accommodate future expansion plans for the Crescent Acres neighborhood.
At City Council’s regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 22 a report on the proposal will be presented to council.
“They sent it to us and just kind of keep us informed and abreast about what their plans are,” RM of PA Reeve Eric Schmalz said.
Schmalz explained that the City has purchased 40 acres of land off a ratepayer in order to extend Byars Road and add another highway junction at Highway 302. The city approved the purchase of a nearly 80-acre parcel at a meeting in February, 2020.
The proposal was initially presented at-an in camera session on Feb. 1 and presented to RM council on Feb. 11. The RM only had a few questions about taxation and timing.
The process of land annexation is when land is transferred from one municipality to another neighbouring municipality. There are a number of steps in the process including consultation with the municipality in question and negotiation of a payment for the land in question.
Then, there’s the annexation agreement and public notice.
The proposed annexation is required to support initially an extension of Byars Street and later an extension of Olive Diefenbaker Drive.
The extension of Byars Street was already included in the 2021 budget by public works. The cost is $200,000 for required engineering design and geotechnical work with $700,000 expected to be added for construction in the 2022 budget.
The first steps in annexation were completed with the presentation to the RM of Prince Albert. Once there is a complementary resolution from the RM, the city and RM can enter into negotiations to negotiate a purchase cost.
For this annexation, the city intends to propose a financial settlement similar to those in the past. The value of the settlement will be directly connected to the current agricultural tax rate applied to the land multiplied by 22.5 years.
Other costs will come from issuing the public notice and other legal items such as preparation of the agreement itself.
Once the annexation price and terms of agreement have been negotiated, city administration will report back to council with information and request that council issues public notice.
For consultations, the annexation team will include the directors of planning and development and public works, planning manager and capital projects, city solicitor’s office, city clerk’s office, director of the Prince Albert and District Planning Commission and Schmalz and administrator Roxanne Roy of the RM of Prince Albert.
