The City of Edmonton and Leduc County signed an agreement Friday, after reaching an agreement on Edmonton’s application to annex land south of the city.
In an event at the Edmonton International Airport Friday, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and Leduc County Mayor John Whaley signed an Annexation Agreement, meaning 6,234 hectares west of the QEII Highway and 2,625 hectares east of the highway would be turned over to Edmonton.
“Obviously we all win, we wouldn’t all be at the table if this was just a one side win,” Whaley said.
The section of land is smaller than the initial bid, officials said that decision was made to save money.
“We are going to have higher density targets everywhere and even higher targets for the City of Edmonton once we crunched those numbers we said we need less land,” Iveson said.
Under the deal, the City of Edmonton will compensate Leduc County with a total of more than $8 million (a one-time sum of $3.2 million, and 10 annual payments of $530,000) to cover tax protection for fifty years.
The land stretches to the Edmonton International Airport, and now planning for the airport’s future is being shared by the City of Edmonton, Leduc, and Leduc County.
“We need to work together to figure out how best to grow the airport as a regional asset,” Iveson said. “So it matters less which flag is flying over the airport because it is a regional asset.”
As for the future, one thing that is unclear is who would pay for a potential LRT extension to the airport, Iveson said officials would work that out.
“This is one of the factors that we are going to have to figure out,” Iveson said. “Who is going to pay for the pipes? Who is going to pay for the roads? Who is going to pay for the rail connection?”
The land will be annexed to Edmonton on January 1, 2019.
With files from Jonathan Glasgow
