Land designated in the city's northwest Industrial Area Structure Plan (Tiffany Goodwein/CHATNewsToday)

By Tiffany Goodwein

Designated industrial zone to require Medicine Hat, Redcliff and Cypress County to work together

Apr 3, 2022 | 5:56 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Speaking to a crowd of people at a chamber event last week, Premier Jason Kenney, stressed the importance of Alberta municipalities being competitive in order to attract investment from big industry.

With hydrogen top of mind for officials in the southeast region, Kenney also announced the creation of designated industrial zones, and hinted as to what Medicine Hat and the southeast region needs to do to attract that coveted hydrogen investment.

“Most of the big petrochemical and hydrogen projects that are coming to Alberta, a lot of them are going to be in the industrial heartlands,” he said.

“So we would love to see southeast Alberta designated as industrial,” he added.

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Kenney said a designated industrial zone would allow industry to “plug and play” instead of spending years caught in regulatory tape. That’s because a designated industrial zone would have all the consultation, planning and zoning finished beforehand.

A few weeks ago council passed the Northwest Industrial Area Structure Plan, a plan they said is critical for the future growth of the city.

Eric Van Enk, interim managing director with Invest Medicine Hat, said the city has been exploring making the land a designated industrial zone, but there is a snag.

“I explained that size of that being six quarter sections and the provincial response I got out of that is a designated industrial zone needs to be substantially larger than that by a factor of multiple times,” he said.

Van Enk explained that in order for the designated industrial zone to go through, Redcliff and Cypress County would need to purchase more land. They would also need to come together to form the designation.

Coming together to help bring investment to the region is something some councillors outside of Medicine Hat fully support.

“I think anytime we are talking about moving the region forward in economic development, or anything like that regional collaboration is something we have been pursuing the last couple of years and it would be no real surprise to any of us that this is something that is being encouraged,” said Robin Kurpjuweit, Cypress County councillor and Intermunicipal Commitee member.

When asked if regional collaboration has been an issue in the past, Kurpjuweit said in the past four years all three regions have made great strides with good conversation and collaboration.

“I think we have an opportunity to build on what we have started, and communication is always something that we make sure we encourage, because all three of our municipalities we have a lot of going on at any given time and so we can easily miss out on talking to each other as much as we maybe could but it is a good reminder to pick up the phone and work on our relationship with our neighbours,” he said, noting candid conversations, that build trust, is important towards strengthening that relationship.

As for what’s next? The city says moving forward they will be working towards de-risking their industrial land for carbon capture utilization and storage. Van Enk said that is another key element towards attracting hydrogen investment.

“That becomes your competitive advantage going forward. There is going to be a limited number of CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage hubs across the province, and so if you can de-risk that technology and build that technology, then naturally any heavy industry that requires CCUS is going to locate in your community,” she said.

Van Enk will also be approaching the Intermunicipal Committee, which consists of elected officials in Redcliff, Cypress County and Medicine Hat, to discuss coming together to form the industrial zone this week.