The Mayor of Okotoks will be taking to Facebook on Tuesday, June 18 to talk about growth in the town.

With there being lots of discussion online from the community about community growth, Mayor Tanya Thorn has decided to help dispel any information by doing a Facebook Live Q&A.

"So, the intent of that is one, so I can do a little bit of myth-busting, cause there's lots of misinformation that's out there," Mayor Thorn explains. "It's also to set the context around what Council can and cannot do when it comes to growth, and why. And then it's to answer questions from the community."

The goal of the Facebook Live is to help make sure the factual information is provided to the public in more ways than just from the website.

The public is encouraged to ask the Mayor questions during the event, and there is a way to submit questions for Mayor Thorn through the Town of Okotoks website.

"And then I will try to get through all of those questions, and if I don't get through all of them within the hour time frame, we will post an FAQ that will have the answer to all of those questions," says Mayor Thorn. "I really encourage the community to join so that they can hear firsthand what is possible, what isn't possible, and the why. And we can have a conversation around what is happening with growth and where the levers are that we do have as a community an opportunity to still put some input into it."

On top of the misinformation out there, Mayor Thorn says she also sees a lot of comments on social media about how some residents don't want the town to grow.

"I appreciate that that's what everybody wants, but there is legitimate reasons of why we can't. That ship has sailed. Our community is going to be growing and I'm going to walk us through the why and the mechanisms or the levers that Council does have available to us to control that growth. To manage what that looks like and how we're managing future infrastructure," Mayor Thorn says.

Part of managing that growth is keeping an eye on the town's water usage.

Mayor Thorn says that people in the community correlate growth and water all the time, but that doesn't necessarily mean the water system is going to become overwhelmed.

Thorn also points out that, just because there is an Area Structure Plan for a new neighbourhood, that doesn't necessarily mean the homes will be built.

And if they do, that doesn't mean the homes will pop up overnight.

"Right now, what we're seeing, we've got two Area Structure Plans that have come forward, the Ridgemont Area Structure Plan and the North Point Area Structure Plan, neither one of those has yet come to the Council table," says Thorn.

Those two plans have come out for public engagement, which is something that is required by all developers, but that's as far as they have gotten.

"They're not even, actually, into our organization yet for us to approve or deny anything. The developers are looking for input. So that's part of the process. But, at an Area Structure Plan point, we don't actually assign water yet."

Thorn says the Town has a water allocation policy, meaning that there could be an unlimited number of Area Structure Plans, but no work will even be started on a single one unless there is enough water to accommodate the new community.

That means, in theory, an approved Area Structure Plan could be put on hold for several years before they even put shovels into the ground.

For instance, the community of Cimarron is finally just finishing being built now, but the plan started back in the early 2000s.

That plan was bigger than the current plans that we are currently seeing.

"That's one of the reasons we are working on the regional water pipeline is because we know to allow for growth, we need more water or access to more water, because the Sheep [river] does not have the volume of water for growth that is happening in this region. And we are trying to manage that through a supplementary water pipeline," Thorn says.

Thorn says the underlying piece of all of this is financial stability as a town.

While the work does get paid for eventually, the Town does have to take into consideration what is being built and when.

For example, the Town is looking at advancing the North Point Area Structure Plan, because the plan sees commercial and industrial development.

"And we really need to broaden our commercial and industrial base, because that helps to offset on the residential taxes. So, that's why Council's looking at advancing that plan," says Thorn. "We know the 338 corridor is going to become an important thing. We know the 338 entrance and interchange that is coming, it's going to be a new entryway into our community. It'll probably end up becoming one of the primary entryways into our community. So, what does that corridor look like from an industrial and commercial perspective?"

Thorn says the Town needs to grow for a few reasons. 

The first is that the Town had annexed 4,600 acres in 2016.

When land gets annexed by a community, the community is basically committing to develop that land.

"The other reason that I say we need to grow is one, we are in a very desirable region. There is growth that is coming to this region. So, whether we put them in the Town of Okotoks boundaries or not, it's coming to the region," explains Thorn.

By allowing the growth to happen within the Town's borders, the Town maintains control of the growth in the area.

"It allows us then to determine the pace of that growth, where that growth will happen, and what that growth is going to look like and what things we want it to serve. So, you're seeing changes in what neighbourhoods look like. You're seeing increased density. Well, that increased density is happening from a financial sustainability perspective," Thorn says.

It costs the Town the same amount of money to install a kilometre of pipes underground, whether there are one or fifty houses within that kilometre, making it a better financial decision to have more houses in a condensed area.

"And financially, it's not just the Town of Okotoks, it's financially better for all of us as residents because you see a better utilization for the investment that's being made in infrastructure when you are dense communities."

That's something newer for Okotoks because a good portion of the homes in town are single-family homes.

Another benefit of increased density in Town, according to Mayor Thorn, is increased housing opportunities.

Thorn says that while there are lots of comments from people about how expensive it is to live in town, increased housing density will help to solve that by providing more housing options to people.

"You can't say that you need all of these, but then say that you don't want to grow. Because it can't be both."

Thorn says that it's about managing what that growth is going to look like and making sure they are being thoughtful about how it happens.

The Town also has a Municipal Development Plan, which describes how the community is going to look and feel over the next 30 years, as well as a Land Use Bylaw.

This Land Use Bylaw dictates how the land could be developed.

Thorn explains that when a builder brings their plans to the Town, the only legal way they are allowed to refuse the builder's plan is if the plan doesn't adhere to both the Town's Municipal Development Plan and the Land Use Bylaw.

"We can't say, 'Ehh, the community doesn't want to grow, so sorry about your luck. We are not going to do that.' We CAN'T do that. If it aligns with our Municipal Development Plan and our Land Use Bylaw, we have to have a statutory reason to refuse the development," says Thorn.

She adds that if the Town grows, property assessments will change due to the increased supply of homes.

Thorn says that affordable housing can only be managed if the Town allows for the supply to grow.

"And if we don't manage it here in Okotoks, we're going to see that happen in the region around us." 

To learn more about growth in Okotoks, tune into Mayor Thorn's Facebook Live on Tuesday, June 18 at 7 p.m.

To submit questions for the Mayor, click here.