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Posted Aug 12, 2014, 4:03 PM
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BANNED
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Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Lower Mount Royal, Calgary
Posts: 5,147
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Still not sure how Okotoks and that whole MD aren't part of Calgary's CMA, being just south of the city limits 
Quote:
Okotoks gets ready for the big boom with 60-year-plan
City with small-town soul plans for impressive growt
BY MARTY HOPE, FOR THE CALGARY HERALD AUGUST 11, 2014
STORYPHOTOS ( 12 )
Okotoks gets ready for the big boom with 60-year-plan
Adrian Shellard/For Calgary Herald Kelly and Kevin Kerr in their home in Okotoks, a city that is set to grow bigger and better over the next few decades.
Photograph by: Adrian Shellard , Calgary Herald
No longer a sleepy bedroom community for Calgary, Okotoks has a 60-year growth plan that could see the population triple, says a town official.
One key element in bringing the impressive plan to reality is a “safe and secure source of water,” says municipal manager Rick Quail.
“Discussions and negotiations with the City of Calgary are ongoing and we hope to secure an agreement this year,” Quail says.
In addition, the town is talking with the provincial government for funding support to have a water pipeline up and operating in five years, he says.
The town hopes to complete the annexation of2,300 hectares of land from the MD of Foothills in a couple of years - landthat will eventually push the town's population to an estimated 82,000 from the currenttotal of just over 27,000.
By 2024, the forecast is for a population of 40,000.
“That’s big numbers, big growth,” says Quail, adding that in 2012 the town removed the population cap of 30,000 that it had imposed in 1998.
From a residential development perspective there are five major projects underway — Cimarron by Tristar Communities Inc., Air Ranch by Bordeaux Developments, Mountain View by Apex Land, Sheep River Cove by Dreamwest Homes, and Westmount by Prominence Development Corp.
On the resale side, activity in the town has increased by 30 per cent year over year as of June. In the second quarter, the Calgary Real Estate Board tallied 273 sales at an average price of $436,000.
In 2013-14, the town recorded a growth rate of 3.4 per cent, according to Shane Olson, economic development team leader for Okotoks. And 2011 federal census figures rated the town as one of the fastest growing census metropolitan areas in Canada during the previous five years. This year, the forecast is for housing starts to total 250.
“Under the agreed-to Calgary Metropolitan Land Use Plan, we will be striving for density of eight to 10 houses per acre from the present four to five with the completion of the water pipeline,” says Olson.
As for being called a bedroom community, Olson says that just isn’t true any longer.
“We have 1,500 people commute to Okotoks every day to work in many of the 1,200 businesses in the town. We’re more of a full-service community now.”
There is a mix of stores, such as Walmart, Canadian Tire, Costco and Sobeys, and several dining chain outlets to go along with smaller local businesses. Olson says the split between storefront and home-based businesses is about 50-50.
“Business growth will come along with population growth,” he says.
When Tristar Communities Inc. laid claim to some 290 hectares of raw farmland in the mid-1990s, the population of the town was less than 10,000. Now, some 20 years later, Cimarron is a full-service community with a vast array of housing styles and price points — “something for everybody,” says Tristar general manager Moez Moledina.
What is likely thought of as the elder statesman of Okotoks community development, Cimarron is putting the finishing touches on phases 40 and 41. When all is said and done in a couple of years, the massive community will have built an estimated 2,500 homes.
“We’ve been doing 100-plus units a year for the past 10 years. That’s how fast this town has been growing,” Moledina says. The 40th phase of the pioneering community has 36 larger lots, and when the 41st and final phase comes to the market next year it will have 65 lots.
“The country estate product being built by our two builders — Timber Creek Homes and Coco Homes — is something you won’t see all that often in Calgary because of the lot sizes, 70 to 85 feet wide and covering 12,000 to 15,000 square feet,” Moledina says.
Kevin and Kelly Kerr have lived their whole lives in rural southern Alberta and that wasn’t about to change when they married. They signed the purchase contract with Timber Creek Homes in January, 2013, sold their home in the Sunshine Meadows neighbourhood of High River after the devastating flood of that June, and took possession of their three-bedroom, 1,800-square-foot Timber Creek bungalow in the Cimarron community in Okotoks that fall.
“We wanted a bigger home and Okotoks was the only rural community with a country estate area,” says Kevin. “We were looking for something where we weren’t being crowded by neighbours.”
In Cimarron, the Kerrs still have that small-town feel as well as the benefit of being in a live-work-play environment with all the amenities of shopping, dining and lifestyle close at hand.
Moledina has watched Okotoks grow and had an active hand in bringing Cimarron into the development spotlight.
“I’ve been working in Okotoks since 1994 (initially with Genstar Development),” says Moledina from the entrance to the two country estates phases.
Tristar will not be saying goodbye to Okotoks with the completion of Cimarron.
“We are looking at a couple of quarter-sections in the southwest part of town that are currently being considered for annexation,” says Moledina. In addition to feeling the positive impact of the Deerfoot Trail extension and the appeal of a slower-paced rural lifestyle, Moledina feels the proposal by the City of Calgary to limit development in suburban areas within the city has provided a boost for Okotoks.
“Absolutely that has played a role in the growth here,” he says. “People will continue to go where they have more choice about where and what they can build.”
Population pipeline links Okotoks and England
It’s no British invasion, but for a town its size, Okotoks has its fair share of accent from the old sod.
And Ian Wisdom of CIR Realty’s Okotoks office had a role in relocating folks from the United Kingdom to the growing but still small city just south of Calgary’s corporate limits. Until 2009, Wisdom was part of an immigration trade show movement that would visit locations in Great Britain with information and assistance for those eager to relocate. And, he recalls, there was a lot of interest from Brits on what Okotoks had to offer.
“For the British, Okotoks reminded them of the market towns they grew up with — small and friendly,” he says. “That’s what many of them were looking for.”
On these trade-show trips, the doors opened Friday and by the end of the weekend, Wisdom says it wasn’t unusual for him to come away with 90 or so leads to follow up on. During the time the trade shows were popular, he estimates hundreds took up residence in Okotoks. But in 2009, the trade show era ended with the collapse of the international economy, the decline in the housing market in the U.K., and the increased use of the Internet.
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http://www.calgaryherald.com/homes/Okotoks+gets+ready+boom+with+year+plan/10102546/story.html
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