County council passed Master Rates Bylaw

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier

Cypress County council passed second and third reading of the Master Rates Bylaw at their Feb. 15 meeting.

“Cypress County has focused on establishing a cost recovery approach for many of the services that are offered to residents,” as read in the agenda package.

A most notable change that councillors had prior to approving first reading on Jan. 18 pertained to the fee structure for the commercial wind farm and solar development fee.

Council agreed to increase the development fee for commercial wind projects to $2,500 per wind turbine/ solar and solar permits will be based on the same amount but per land title and that number is now finalized.

A whole host of fee changes has been under the development, subdivision, public works, recreation and agriculture sections of the bylaw and can be viewed at http://www.cypress.ab.ca.

Incident report

Cypress County emergency services saw increase in call volume in 2021 to 307, which is up from 245 in 2020.

“In 2021, there appears to be a reduction in the number of structure fires, and increase in the number of grass fires and medical first response calls in comparison to 2020,” as read in the agenda package.

Structure fires went from 14 in 2020 down to nine in 2021.

Grass fires increased to 53 in 2021 over 21 from the previous year.

Medical first response went from 68 in 2020 to 84 in 2021.

Dunmore Fire Station led the way with 122 incident calls in 2021.

Get More Bow Island Commentator →