At its Apr. 1 meeting, Slave Lake town council settled the question of who pays and how much for three Hwy. 2 intersection upgrades. The costs will be distributed among the owners of undeveloped land south and north of the highway, according to a formula that none of them (according to documents and presentations) seem happy with.
Council isn’t happy either. Its members think the province ought to contribute to the upgrades, but the province has declined. So what they came up with is a scheme that spreads 75 per cent (about $2.2 million) of the cost among property owners both south and north of the highway, with the town covering the rest.
Before making their decision, councillors heard from Gordon Ferguson and Dave Gaskell of Legacy Developments. They said the community as a whole benefits from the intersections; therefore the community as a whole should pay a bigger share.
Ferguson pointed out what he called the unfairness of new development having to carry the whole burden, while existing development, although it benefits too, gets off the hook.
Another point of view was expressed, by letter, by a property owner from north of the highway. It suggested that since development south of the highway was entirely responsible for intersection upgrades being needed, it should pay the whole shot.
One thing all parties seemed to agree on is that the province should be paying a share. Indeed, the province is at least indirectly responsible for the town missing the chance to collect intersection upgrade costs from any of the existing new development south of the highway, including some that aren’t even finished yet. Why? Because it can’t go back and re-open development agreements, explained the town’s planning supervisor Laurie Skrynyk in council’s agenda package. When those agreements were signed, the province hadn’t yet decided that intersection upgrades were necessary.
Hence the dilemma, as Ferguson described: upcoming developments pay, whereas existing ones benefit, but don’t pay.
However, nobody seems to have given up on getting some cash out of the provincial government. Council further resolved to pursue that angle with all due diligence. Ferguson vowed that his group would do the same. He noted that what the bureaucrats say and what the ministers says are often two quite different things.
“If the province says they want to have this, they should contribute,” he said. “We have some political capital, and we’re going to play that card and see what happens.”

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