Council looks to fund intersection project through grant

Lloydminster council is looking to improve the 12 St. and 75 Ave. intersection.

At the Nov. 25 council meeting, a presentation was made regarding a grant application to fund part of the intersection improvement. 

Lloydminster will be applying for the Alberta Local Growth and Sustainability Grant (LGSG) program, covering $700,000 of the project. To pay for the remaining portion of the project, council committed $420,000 from the Local Government Fiscal Framework and $280,000 from the Capital Programs Reserve.

The LGSG was announced in the 2024 budget with funding of $60 million over three years to support local governments by funding infrastructure that addresses growth pressures, attracts economic development opportunities, and addresses unique or emergency needs in the community.

“This was brought forward by the Government of Alberta, as you saw in the budget and some of the information, the LGSG, the fund that the Government of Alberta provides us in the form of a capital grant has been reduced and they’ve started to come back up based on the economy of Alberta,” said Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers.

Aalbers says growth can be costly and it’s a message the province has heard.

“The message they’ve heard from the mid-sized mayors of Alberta, which we belong to, is that growth communities are driving the province and growth is costly,” he said.

Aalbers says he appreciates the approach council has taken in their grant application.

“I appreciate what administration has done they’ve brought forward a project that is infrastructure driven,” said Aalbers.

He is hopeful that Lloyd would be chosen to receive the funding to improve the intersection.

 “If I was the government, I’d be looking for a number of projects to try to raise their flag on and hopefully support. With this being a 1.4-million total cost if they were to use the sprinkling method, I would hope we would be able to obtain as much of that $700,000 as possible,” said Aalbers.

City Manager Dion Pollard says the city is also prepared if the application isn’t successful.

“We’ve also added a component in both the next two applications, if unsuccessful we’ve added the component that,       we don’t get the grant here’s the other funding solution we do think the projects need to move ahead. We’ve added a secondary component to make sure we don’t have to come back to council for approval should we be unsuccessful in either one of these grants,” he said.

Pollard says it’s not something they’ve done in the past but it’s important for the project to move ahead.

We haven’t always done that but in this case, we want to make sure the projects can still move ahead.”

Aalbers says it’s important to keep the project moving forward as the infrastructure gap in the city is already is already big.

“If we don’t move these projects forward then we get back to that infrastructure gap getting just a little wider,” said Aalbers.

Council passed their motion directing administration to apply for the LGSG. If the city is unsuccessful in the application,  council commits the Local Growth and Sustainability Grant portion of $103,598 from Capital Programs Reserve, $80,000 from Transportation Capital Reserve and $516,402 from Road Infrastructure Capital Reserve.

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