If ever a system needed some updating it is the one whereby urban municipalities are able to annex land from surrounding rural municipalities in order to facilitate community growth.
Anyone who believes the current system works should take a look at the current situation facing the City of Yorkton.
Yorkton is experiencing a near unprecedented boom, and certainly the most rapid rate of growth in decades.
Such growth creates demand for residential lots, as well as commercial and industrial properties within the city.
According to Yorkton Mayor James Wilson in a presentation to the local Chamber of Commerce, the situation in terms of commercial lots is extremely tight, with the City down to about 10 in its inventory, more than half of those under development and months from being building ready.
The situation is only slightly better on the residential side, where the new York Colony Subdivision will provide about two-years of growth based on 2010 housing start numbers.
The City has looked forward to such growth, and has acquired land outside the existing city boundaries with an eye to future needs. The City is now moving to annex those lands - land they hold title to - into the city reasoning they need to be able to realize future tax revenues from those lands if they are going invest in serving the land with water, sewer, streets and sidewalks.
It would seem a reasonable request to annex land the City already owns, but Wilson said the City has been in negotiations with the RM of Orkney for some 18-months, and got nowhere, as the RM has dug in its heel to the point the City is now looking to provincial arbitration to get the deal done.
The City has offered to compensate the RM 15 times taxes raised on commercial property annexed, and five times on agricultural land.
Of course the biggest stumbling block is the money. The RM wants more than the City wants to pay. That's typical of most price negotiations, but in annexation cases it creates bad feelings which will linger over the RM / City relationship moving forward.
This is where the province needs to lead, and not be the avenue of last resort through arbitration. The province needs to establish a formula for compensation which is simply applied in annexation cases.
Beyond that obvious change, in the local case the RM of Orkney might want to consider what putting a drag on city growth accomplishes?
Developments such as the Richardson Oilseeds crushing plant would not have occurred in the RM without a city which brought two railways, and five highways to a central point. The city is also the impetus for amenities; hospital, schools, recreational facilities which were integral in a plant such as the canola crusher establishing with confidence it could attract staff.
There are fights worth fighting, but the RM road-blocking the City annexing its own land is an ill-timed, ill-advised and wrong-minded battle to be fighting. It will do little for local community growth, city, or RM, or for the relationship between the municipalities moving forward.
