District to work on infrastructure upgrade funding, attainable housing strategy, and civic land assessment
By Steve Hubrecht
The district of Invermere has plenty on its plate this fall, as it works to achieve several strategic goals.
As reported previously by the Pioneer, the district has made climate change one of its strategic priorities, but it will also tackle several other projects that Invermere council members set during their summer sessions, including: securing funding for the rest of sewer and infrastructure upgrades along 13th Avenue, figuring out what it can do in terms of creating attainable housing, and taking the first steps to developing a civic land strategy.
Work has been underway for several weeks on sewer upgrades on 13th Avenue, but the current efforts focus only on the most pressing part of 13th Avenue – the whole street has been slated for infrastructure upgrades for a few years. The district wants to do the rest of the work as soon as possible.
“Our management team will be seeking external funding to help cover that cost,” Invermere mayor, Al Miller told the Pioneer, adding that the district didn’t get any external funding for the current work.
“The money for the first phase came out of district reserves. It had to, because the work was very pressing and needed to be done immediately,” he says. “But we want to try and get a grant for the rest of it.”
Attainable housing has been a strategic priority for the district for a while, and has moved higher up the list (it’s currently the third priority) following the completion of Invermere’s housing assessment needs this past spring.
The district struck a mayor’s committee on attainable housing two years ago, and the housing needs assessment will be presented to the committee, explains Miller.
“We’re going to be moving forward on this, and figure out what we can do, and how the district can be of help,” he says. “It’s a high priority on the list, because we hear day in and day out that people are leaving Invermere or deciding not to move here, because they can’t find a place to live.”
With an end goal of eventually having a civic land strategy, the district is currently conducting an assessment of all civic lands, as well as private lands that could potentially be of civic use.
“We felt we needed to do an inventory to see what we have, in terms of district land and non-district lands, that we can do something with. Then we need to think about what is the best plan,” says Miller. “We don’t want to earmark land for a certain use, and then realize down the road that perhaps we should have done things differently. We need a plan to make sure we’re making the best possible decisions about what to do with the lands we have.”
One of the largest and most obvious tracts of district-owned land that is currently not being used to its full potential is the site of the old Invermere community centre. The Pioneer asked Miller about persistent rumours, that it may one day be turned into a park or some other sort of green space.
“It’s a great piece of land, but I think there’s a higher use for it. I am a big believer in parks, but I don’t know if that’s the best use of that particular land,” he replies.
