Growth in Grassy Lake continues for M.D.

By Cole Parkinson
Taber Times
cparkinson@tabertimes.com

More residential development will soon be coming to the Hamlet of Grassy Lake in the near future.

During the Municipal District of Taber’s policy meeting on Feb. 22, M.D. staff informed council of the possibilities of acquiring more residential lots if they so choose to do so.

“We’re getting to the area in Grassy Lake, of course you know we’re running short of residential lots, we do have some land available within the hamlet that we could look at developing. I had a conversation with a resident last week that he brought it up to see if the M.D. was interested in obtaining some land that’s within the hamlet, privately owned land, that he’s looking to downsize in his land ownership,” said Jack Dunsmore, director of planning and infrastructure for the M.D.

The land in question is located in the northeast corner of Grassy Lake and would total to a 21.47 acre parcel and a 20 acre parcel.

With the increase of population within the hamlet, it has put the M.D. under the gun to constantly have commercial and industrial lots to accommodate the larger population.

While the M.D does have some land still within Grassy Lake, the purchasing of some new lots would help their cause quite a bit.

“It’s just something we’ve been tasked with for awhile now to make sure we have enough developable areas in the hamlets to keep it going. Hays and Enchant are in pretty good shape, with the way Grassy Lake grows I don’t know if we’re ever in good shape. It just seems that when we think we are, the next thing we know is we’re looking at more developed lots,” continued Dunsmore. “Keeping in mind that when we took Grassy Lake over I think the population was 340 or 320. Now it’s 1,000 or darn close.”

One concern voiced was Reeve Brian Brewin had heard the land was an old coal mine which Dunsmore said he also heard the same thing originally but the land owner quelled his fear.

“According to the land owner, it was just where they dumped coal and people would come pick it up,” said Dunsmore.

The potential to buy land within the hamlet doesn’t come along very often and Dunsmore believed the land would be a good acquisition for the M.D.

“If we’re thinking of the future, I think it would be a very, very good spot to look into and see what’s there,” added Dunsmore, he also stated a meeting between the M.D. and land owner could come together fairly quickly if council wanted to proceed.

Whichever decision council decided on, Dunsmore also touched on the need to do some engineering on the land they currently own and would need to do if they bought more.

“Regardless of what we do, if we start development on our own lots or add some additional properties to develop, we’ll have to do some engineering with regard to mostly septic,” he said.

Council passed two separate motions unanimously to pursue future lots in Grassy Lake as well to do engineering on the lots.