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Applications are being accepted until Nov. 29 for the long-hinted municipal growth and sustainability fund announced today by Municipal Affairs minister Ric McIver.
For some time, Mayor Jeff Genung has expressed excitement about the $60 million pool of infrastructure funding and spoke about it with Cochrane Now over the weekend in anticipation of the announcement.
Genung says it's a fund the town and other municipalities forming the Alberta Mid-sized Cities Mayors' Caucus have been seeking.
"I would say that grant, the $60 million, is a direct outcome of the work that MCMC has done."
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To help municipalities experiencing population growth-related pressures on public infrastructure, Alberta’s government has introduced the Local Growth and Sustainability Grant (LGSG), providing $20 million annually over three years to help meet this challenge.
About three-quarters of it, $15 million annually, will help mid-sized communities like Cochrane with populations between 10,000 and 200,000 meet growth-related infrastructure needs, such as vital roadways.
Projects funded under the growth component will be cost-shared with the applicant municipal government.
The rest of the funding, approximately $5 million annually, will help smaller communities with populations fewer than 10,000 address pressing health or safety issues, such as water treatment.
With $20 million available annually, Minister McIver is confident the program will be oversubscribed and expects stiff competition from roughly 330 municipalities in the province.
"I asked for more, but sometimes when you go to the treasury board as a ministry you don't get everything you ask for," said McIver during the announcement.
"Our municipalities are quite good at what they do and I'm sure we're going to see a bunch of amazing applications and probably we're going to have some difficult choices to make."
"It's not about pitting one municipality against the other," says McIver, "it's about getting the best value that we can for the taxpayer dollars while still supporting our amazing municipalities that are doing great work to bring in jobs, investments, and opportunities."
In March 2023, then Municipal Affairs minister Rebecca Schulz spoke of a potential mid-sized cities fund to help address infrastructure deficits during an MCMC meeting in Cochrane.