One of the more interesting issues that came up during the civic election two years ago focused on economic development in Estevan.
There was debate on whether the city should hire a new economic development co-ordinator, and the responsibilities for that individual.
Council ultimately decided to hire a new individual, although the position was vacant for about 10 months after the 2016 vote. Council believed, and rightly so, that in a time of economic uncertainty – due to the murky future of coal mining in Canada and the lower price of oil – an economic development employee would play an important role in the diversification of the economy and in the attraction of new businesses to Estevan.
The city’s economic development co-ordinator, Dwight Bramble, delivered arguably his most important document thus far during Monday’s city council meeting. It’s a business incentive program designed to give stimulus for businesses to come to the community.
The biggest plank in the incentives program calls for a three-year property tax exemption for new and existing businesses that construct buildings within city limits. If a new restaurant, for example, decides to come to Estevan and build a new location, rather than move into an old one, then it will receive a three-year exemption.
And if an existing company decides to build a new location within the city, then it will receive that three-year exemption.
Furthermore, if a business that falls within one of five targeted areas decides to build a new site within city limits, then there’s a five-year exemption.
There are also incentives for businesses that make improvements to storefronts, or who decide to pave their parking lots. And there are plans for mentorship for new entrepreneurs.
All of this represents a step forward.
The city has to do what it can to allow new businesses to come to the region. Estevan not only needs to be competitive with other areas in the province and in Western Canada, it needs to be one of the most desirable markets for that construction.
With the pending retirement of Units 4 and 5 at the Boundary Dam Power Station, the city has no choice but to diversify its economy. SaskPower can claim there won’t be job losses when Units 4 and 5 at Boundary Dam are shut down, but there will likely be employees shuffled to other SaskPower sites in the province. And there will be jobs lost at the mines, just like there were job losses when Units 1 and 2 at Boundary Dam went offline a few years ago.
These people will need work. And Estevan isn’t a large enough community to not feel the effects of a significant out-migration of people.
It should also be noted that these incentives represent a starting point. Others will be coming in the future. It would be nice to see this incentive program extended to residential properties, so that those who want to construct new homes or multi-family developments can also be rewarded.
This isn’t the first time that Estevan has had an incentives program. The CANDO project was introduced in 2005 as a means to have new residential and commercial properties constructed in the city.
You could argue that CANDO ultimately wasn’t needed, since it came in just before the local and provincial economic boom, but it was a nice asset to have when approaching businesses about coming here, or trying to entice developers to build here.
CANDO was eventually phased out towards the end of the boom, and hindsight says it maybe should have been retained.
As for the relevance of an economic development co-ordinator, it can be a hard job to evaluate. It’s not as easy as looking at the number of businesses that have been brought to the community, although as we progress further into Bramble’s tenure, business attraction will gain greater relevance.
But there are a lot of other things that an economic development co-ordinator is tasked with, not only in terms of bringing businesses to a city, but keeping them here, and fostering a climate that is enticing for business.
This business incentive program is a good step forward. Hopefully it resonates with business leaders, and it yields results as Estevan moves into what could be a decade of uncertainty.
