GUNTER: City development costs in Blatchford become uncontrollable

Here's an idea for City Council: Give up your naive dream of developing Blatchford (the former downtown airport lot) as tomorrow's eco-utopian neighborhood. The cost is too high and you will never get the money back – the taxpayers' money – that you spend.

On Thursday, the administration informed the council's public services committee that Blatchford would need an additional $ 52 million in taxpayer funding. This is in addition to the $ 115 million that the Board has just approved in the 2019-2022 investment budget.

In total, it is $ 167 million before the subdivision really begins.

The city hopes that this mbadive spending on Blatchford's infrastructure will be recovered through land sales and property taxes. But it's hopelessly unrealistic.

From time to time, in rare moments of honesty (honesty towards themselves as well as with taxpayers), the city admits that a portion of Blatchford's money will constitute a " non-refundable financial infusion ".

In other words, some of the money spent by taxpayers will never be recovered. Yet we are all supposed to accept this white elephant wrapped in a "green" hype and be content to know that this money is for a good cause – the council's dream of preventing global warming.

It's as if your neighbors had a pet charity they were financing with your credit card. The board is obsessed with environmentalism. They use Blatchford as an eco-lab and use the money from your taxes and mine to fund it.

Until now, the city admits to having spent more than $ 20 million for preliminary development at Blatchford. Much of this money has been spent on nearly 500 boreholes in search of geothermal sources, the city of which is surely underground and which will support most of the load to heat each building of the entire development.

Sources at City Hall, however, tell me that the actual figure is close to $ 50 million, but many expenses are hidden in other budgets.

Yet even with the lowest public figure, the cost in 2022 would be close to $ 200 million before there is a chance that real money will return to the coffers of the public. cities.

In fact, since significant amounts will only start to be paid in 2027-2028, I imagine that the "non-refundable financial contribution" from taxpayers will eventually reach $ 300 million or more.

This is the amount you and I will have to pay to fulfill the board's "green" dream. And we wonder why the board is constantly raising taxes.

It does not include the cost of extending the NAIT line to Blatchford to Blatchford.

Currently, the city is acting as a developer for the more than 500-acre site that could accommodate 30,000 people a day. I say, give the whole process to private developers without all the ecological whizzbangs and geegaws imagined by central planners.

In addition, the city must stop thinking that homebuyers in the new arid and wind-swept subdivision just north of the city center will pay a premium for living in a no-emissions, no-car community. This is not because advisors and planners will want most buyers not to do so.

Indeed, given the scarcity and remoteness of the neighborhood (at least initially, there will be no stores or amenities and only one entrance behind the Alberta Aviation Museum on Kingsway), it is more likely that the city and Housing density builders in order to make anyone bite.

Ironically, in a neighborhood where the city hopes that most locals will not have a car, there is no plan to build a grocery store or restaurant until 2023 at the earliest. No arena or community hall. And the nearest tram stop is more than one kilometer away.

This means that residents will have to drive their cars everywhere, whenever they need anything.

Put an end to this debacle now before it collapses and hurts taxpayers.