Airdrie City council adopted four strategic priorities for the coming year and throughout their current term.
Similar to the Airdrie City Plan, which is scheduled to be finalized by July 7, the City’s strategic priorities outline a specific set of goals to achieve a community vision.
While the City Plan is a document that outlines strategies for the long term, the strategic priorities are a guideline for the current council from now through 2017.
“Many of the items we looked at are of great importance and they have been pushed to look at a three-year horizon,” said Dorian Kachur, Business Strategy team leader for the City.
“Because of the nature of these priorities, it will take more than a year to complete them.”
The four priorities that council established are: well-managed growth, sustainable transportation, economic prosperity, and fiscal responsibility.
A closer look at each priority shows that well-managed growth has been outlined as giving council options to best ready lands for industrial/commercial development, including investing in infrastructure and additional planning methods.
Sustainable transportation has been identified as a need to improve access to Highway 2 through the construction of another interchange, likely in the far south end of the city.
For economic prosperity, the goal for the City is to aggressively pursue means to advance industrial business development in order to more equitably distribute the tax base and create local employment opportunities.
Establishing a fiscal sustainability framework is the fourth priority and will determine key principles and approaches to risk mitigation as well as reviewing and updating existing financial policies.
Mayor Peter Brown voiced his support for the proposed strategic priorities, noting their value as a measuring stick for council’s work.
“This is where we wanted to go, and I think that when we’ve finished our terms we’ll be able to effectively measure the outcomes of some of our priorities when we decided to run for office,” said Brown.
The strategic priorities were unanimously approved by council.
