The Town of High River wants some of the land back that the Province took over after the flood.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says the area involved includes Wallaceville, the former Rio Vista golf course site and the former Beach residence at the west end of 12 Avenue.

"All of those have value to us and we want control of those pieces of property for a number of reasons," he says. "It's just difficult to have provincially-owned pieces of land throughout your town that don't really need to be owned by the Province."

He says all three are part of the town's flood mitigation program and all will have water flowing through them during another high water event, keeping that water from spreading throughout downtown and through people's homes.

"We want control of the floodway through High River," Mayor Snodgrass says. "Everybody knows that we're pretty strict on what we're going to be using that property for and that's floodway and that's it.

"I do look at Rio Vista as having some opportunity of us having a dog park in there. I think it's a great place for a dog park. You can have parking in there, you don't need any infrastructure of any kind with water, sewer or power or anything like that, you've got a berm there, there's fencing there it's three-quarters done for a good dog park."

The province purchased the land through the Southern Alberta Floodway Relocation Program.

The mayor says the town has been working to get the land titles transferred back to the Town since right after the flood but they have to go through all the proper channels.

He expects it'll take another year or two to get it all done.

 

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