The County of Grande Prarie is putting $230,000 back into its pocket, now that the Municipal District of Greenview will be taking on what was the Tri-Municipal Industrial Partnership alone. Reeve Leanne Beaupre says the money was recommended to go back into the County’s planning and economic development reserve.
Beaupre says prior to COVID-19, the MD had put the project on pause to confirm which direction they wanted to go, as well as to review the financial commitment to it. When the partnership met in the fall, Beaupre adds the MD had downsized the project so as not to include projects outside their own municipality and had chosen to move forward as a single entity.
The Tri-Municipal Industrial Partnership was first announced at the end of 2016. The goal of the coalition was to construct a large-scale industrial park on 335 square kilometres of Crown land, roughly 40 kilometres south of the City of Grande Prairie.
Both the County and the City of Grande Prairie have since been refunded their seed money. Beaupre says the plan for those funds now is to reallocate them into future County endeavours.
“That was money we had used and leveraged for some provincial grants that were available to us for the project,” she says. “It goes a fairly long way when you’re doing area structure plans, outline plans, that type of thing but it also is money that can be leveraged against other provincial initiatives and grants that are available for those types of projects.”
Beaupre added it will take a motion of council for money to come out of that reserve now that it has been re-deposited.