The St. Albert Chamber of Commerce’s downtown building proposal might be threatened by the city’s decision to axe the Capital Partnership Program.
“We’re very surprised and concerned,” said St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce president Lynda Moffat, who learned of the potential changes when the Gazette contacted her.
While the program, which offers funding opportunities to groups looking to build capital projects in St. Albert, was originally intended to be in effect until Dec. 21, 2019, staff recommended to council on Monday that submissions be cut off at the end of the month, just a few months after the bylaw governing the program became effective on Jan. 1.
Council’s standing committee on finance opted to not follow the March end-date suggestion, instead going with the end of June as an application cut-off date.
But Moffat said she’s not sure the chamber can make that deadline, since its proposal involves collaboration with possible partners like the city.
“There was no urgency. We were never told there was any sense of urgency,” Moffat said.
The president of the St. Albert Community Performing Arts Society, which is hoping to build a performing arts facility around Grace Family Church, said the society plans to submit an application within the next couple of weeks, well before the new deadline of June 30.
Standing committee on finance decisions need to be ratified by council at a later meeting. Most of the standing committee on finance related motions from Monday’s meeting are expected back at council on March 23.
The program was designed to offer community groups such as not-for-profit societies, charities or academic institutions the opportunity to apply to the city to get one-third of the funding covered from the municipal coffers to develop a new facility if the project met the eligibility requirements.
The city’s contribution for a successful application would be a minimum of $500,000 to a maximum of $5-million. That contribution can be money, but also land or other in-kind offerings.
The decision of the committee means, once the motion is ratified by council, that community groups hoping to apply for funding will have months instead of years to access the program.
Monique St. Louis, director of Build St. Albert, said staff suggested the policy change because the anticipated project applications’ scope and magnitude are less than what was envisioned when the policy was passed in 2013.
St. Louis said no formal applications have been submitted yet, though they do expect a few. She said the applications would be honoured if submitted before the deadline and go through the vetting and screening process.
“I think there will be some exciting projects,” St. Louis said.
Some councillors resisted the idea of shutting the program down, while others, including the mayor and Coun. Cam MacKay, said they’d always been leery of the program.
“As the only member of council at the time to not support the Capital Partnership Program … I’m glad to see it come to the end,” MacKay said, adding that there hadn’t been a source of funding assigned anyway, so the money would have had to be found for each project.
That lack of a dedicated funding source was what concerned Mayor Nolan Crouse as well, though he was worried about the suggested March 30 date.
“It’ll come across like we’ve pulled the rug out from underneath those who have been courting the idea,” Crouse said.
Coun. Gilles Prefontaine suggested moving the date to June 30, though he didn’t support ending the program. Coun. Cathy Heron and Coun. Wes Brodhead also voted against a motion to cut-off applications after June 30.
