Too Much, Too Fast? The Future of Okotoks Growth

Okotoks is growing fast, but is it growing wisely? 

In this episode of the Okotoks Podcast, Carlin Lutzer sits down with Foothills County resident Paul Howarth to discuss the pressures, concerns, and civic responsibilities surrounding Okotoks’ rapid growth plans. 

The conversation explores traffic congestion, emergency response delays, school capacity, infrastructure costs, density, builder quality, public hearings, and whether residents still have meaningful power to shape the future of their town. 

Paul emphasizes that the issue is not being anti-growth, but being pro-planning: growth should support both current residents and future families, with infrastructure, services, and community identity protected before development races ahead.

Listen For:

3:05 Is Okotoks growing too fast without the right planning?

8:24 Can local councils actually stop or reshape major developments?

19:10 Do public hearings matter if decisions already feel made?

30:04 Who is Okotoks really building all this new housing for?

44:45 How much power do residents still have over Okotoks’ future?

Guest: Paul Howarth, Foothills County Resident & Community Development Advocate

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Transcript

MDP stage, then what role do public hearings, consultations, and community engagement actually play moving forward? Can residents still influence development? Can projects be slowed down, reshaped, or even rejected? Or has the direction already been decided?

This episode is not anti-growth. It's about asking whether growth is happening in a way that is sustainable, transparent, and reflective of what people love about Okotoks in the first place. Traffic concerns, school capacity, infrastructure, density, community identity, emergency response times, builder quality, the pace of development itself. These conversations are happening whether council chambers hear them or not.

So today we're opening the door to that conversation because whether you support rapid growth, cautious growth, or somewhere in between, one thing is clear: the future of Okotoks is being written right now.

My guest today is Paul Howard, a resident of Foothills County who has some expertise on growth and how the people can let their voices be heard.

Let's get into the conversation. Paul, thanks for joining me again.

Paul Howard (03:02):
 Oh, you're welcome. It's good to be here, Carlin. Thank you.

Carlin Lutzer (03:05):
 Yeah. And today I'm leaning on you for your expertise in regards to some of the things that you've done in the County of Foothills in regards to some of the proposed developments and kind of some of the, would you call it basically taking a stand and saying, "I think your line was we're not against growth. We're just looking at growth to be done in a proper manageable way as opposed to just trying to pack as many people into a subdivision as possible." Is that correct?

Paul Howard (03:44):
 That's right. I mean, it's not just about building the housing. It's about setting up the people that are going to move there for success whilst also maintaining the environment that the residents that are currently there purchased their homes and moved into. It's about the planning. It's about the facilities that are available and the proximity to them.

Carlin Lutzer (04:11):
 Right, for sure. And I think Okotoks, we're certainly, just to bring it back to home and just so the listeners know, you are not a resident of Okotoks. You live in the County of Foothills, which I think is important for people to know because you do come into Okotoks regularly. Things do change the way you go about things a little bit with the growth. However, you don't have as much skin in the game as an average Okotokian, but you're just here to give us some advice because right now I sat at an open house on Saturday.

It was on the south side of the river. I was putting up open house signs and there was right by the fire department RCMP shop, that's where I was putting up signs, and the fire department, they opened up the doors, they took off, they went to an emergency. It sounded like they needed more help so they called the north fire department to come down and them getting across that bridge on a Saturday afternoon was very, very slow.

It was not as quickly as they would've needed it to be in an emergency situation. Traffic is getting really, really busy. Growth is high on the priority list of the Town of Okotoks, but we're just... Again, back to that open house, Paul, many people that came in there, I was not even bringing it up. They were just naturally bringing up how busy the roads were that day, how crazy this town's getting with traffic already. And we haven't even started to come close to tapping into the growth that the town is planning.

Now, this has been a bit of a journey for me and sometimes I'll admit I've spouted misinformation accidentally, but this is right from the town's website. Right now the Town of Okotoks is projected to grow by 2049. We are looking at the possibility of being at 95,000, over 95,000 people. That's a lot faster than what I thought. Yeah. So they're aiming for 96,000 people.

There's a growth chart in the document, it's like 250 pages long, Okotoks' growth strategy, and they give the different levels of growth. There's low growth at 2%, 2% a year, medium growth at 3%. We're mid to high growth. That's what they're aiming for is 4%.

Now there's lots of questions that come up with that, Paul, because Calgary's fighting this blanket rezoning issue right now. They're repealing it because I think they're seeing what a disaster it is. Well, I think many people don't know that this was something the blanket rezoning in Okotoks was passed years ago. We already have... It's very easy to get basement suites, carriage houses placed in your house.

So even this growth that they're looking for at the units per acre, I don't even know if that necessarily includes the basement suites and the carriage houses and stuff that are going to be included in these areas, Paul. So needless to say, there's some major concerns that the residents of Okotoks seem to have.

It was a major issue in the election. In fact, we had Jeff Green on the podcast last week and he was very informative and it was great having him and I love keeping the conversation rolling, but it just seems like with each conversation there's more questions that are presented at the end of the conversation.

Yeah, I admittedly am certainly learning as we go, but you walked Foothills County through a little bit of a place where you guys actually stopped a development or a couple of developments from happening.

Paul Howard (08:24):
 Well, that remains to be seen. Nothing's been stopped in its path right now, but what we have done is this election here was fought solely on the basis of development and a plan that had come forward. What happens next is kind of a story unwritten, but there are cases where developments have been completely stopped.

So if I look at Newfield versus the County of Mountain View, there was an election there fought on development. The county changed its Municipal Development Plan. It overturned an Area Structure Plan after that development plan was made after electing a new council. The developer sued the county and the county won a summary judgment that it wouldn't even go to trial.

So the power is really with the local council on what they do. They get to say what happens in your town of Okotoks, whether these developments go ahead.

They set out a program which is the Municipal Development Plan, the MDP, and that kind of paves the way for how development will be done within the municipal boundary of Okotoks. It is really under the control of the people who elect the council to represent Okotoks of what they want Okotoks to look like in the future.

I've used facilities in Okotoks. The county here actually gives money to Okotoks because our residents use the facilities within the boundaries. I heard a council meeting or intermunicipal meeting saying that even your rec centre is way over the capacity of what it needs. And they were looking at building another rec centre.

So it's all about what do the people of Okotoks want? Why did you move there?

MDP stage, then what role do public hearings, consultations, and community engagement actually play moving forward? Can residents still influence development? Can projects be slowed down, reshaped, or even rejected? Or has the direction already been decided?

This episode is not anti-growth. It's about asking whether growth is happening in a way that is sustainable, transparent, and reflective of what people love about Okotoks in the first place. Traffic concerns, school capacity, infrastructure, density, community identity, emergency response times, builder quality, the pace of development itself. These conversations are happening whether council chambers hear them or not.

So today we're opening the door to that conversation because whether you support rapid growth, cautious growth, or somewhere in between, one thing is clear: the future of Okotoks is being written right now.

My guest today is Paul Howard, a resident of Foothills County who has some expertise on growth and how the people can let their voices be heard.

Let's get into the conversation. Paul, thanks for joining me again.

Paul Howard (03:02):
 Oh, you're welcome. It's good to be here, Carlin. Thank you.

Carlin Lutzer (03:05):
 Yeah. And today I'm leaning on you for your expertise in regards to some of the things that you've done in the County of Foothills in regards to some of the proposed developments and kind of some of the, would you call it basically taking a stand and saying, "I think your line was we're not against growth. We're just looking at growth to be done in a proper manageable way as opposed to just trying to pack as many people into a subdivision as possible." Is that correct?

Paul Howard (03:44):
 That's right. I mean, it's not just about building the housing. It's about setting up the people that are going to move there for success whilst also maintaining the environment that the residents that are currently there purchased their homes and moved into. It's about the planning. It's about the facilities that are available and the proximity to them.

Carlin Lutzer (04:11):
 Right, for sure. And I think Okotoks, we're certainly, just to bring it back to home and just so the listeners know, you are not a resident of Okotoks. You live in the County of Foothills, which I think is important for people to know because you do come into Okotoks regularly. Things do change the way you go about things a little bit with the growth. However, you don't have as much skin in the game as an average Okotokian, but you're just here to give us some advice because right now I sat at an open house on Saturday.

It was on the south side of the river. I was putting up open house signs and there was right by the fire department RCMP shop, that's where I was putting up signs, and the fire department, they opened up the doors, they took off, they went to an emergency. It sounded like they needed more help so they called the north fire department to come down and them getting across that bridge on a Saturday afternoon was very, very slow.

It was not as quickly as they would've needed it to be in an emergency situation. Traffic is getting really, really busy. Growth is high on the priority list of the Town of Okotoks, but we're just... Again, back to that open house, Paul, many people that came in there, I was not even bringing it up. They were just naturally bringing up how busy the roads were that day, how crazy this town's getting with traffic already. And we haven't even started to come close to tapping into the growth that the town is planning.

Now, this has been a bit of a journey for me and sometimes I'll admit I've spouted misinformation accidentally, but this is right from the town's website. Right now the Town of Okotoks is projected to grow by 2049. We are looking at the possibility of being at 95,000, over 95,000 people. That's a lot faster than what I thought. Yeah. So they're aiming for 96,000 people.

There's a growth chart in the document, it's like 250 pages long, Okotoks' growth strategy, and they give the different levels of growth. There's low growth at 2%, 2% a year, medium growth at 3%. We're mid to high growth. That's what they're aiming for is 4%.

Now there's lots of questions that come up with that, Paul, because Calgary's fighting this blanket rezoning issue right now. They're repealing it because I think they're seeing what a disaster it is. Well, I think many people don't know that this was something the blanket rezoning in Okotoks was passed years ago. We already have... It's very easy to get basement suites, carriage houses placed in your house.

So even this growth that they're looking for at the units per acre, I don't even know if that necessarily includes the basement suites and the carriage houses and stuff that are going to be included in these areas, Paul. So needless to say, there's some major concerns that the residents of Okotoks seem to have.

It was a major issue in the election. In fact, we had Jeff Green on the podcast last week and he was very informative and it was great having him and I love keeping the conversation rolling, but it just seems like with each conversation there's more questions that are presented at the end of the conversation.

Yeah, I admittedly am certainly learning as we go, but you walked Foothills County through a little bit of a place where you guys actually stopped a development or a couple of developments from happening.

Paul Howard (08:24):
 Well, that remains to be seen. Nothing's been stopped in its path right now, but what we have done is this election here was fought solely on the basis of development and a plan that had come forward. What happens next is kind of a story unwritten, but there are cases where developments have been completely stopped.

So if I look at Newfield versus the County of Mountain View, there was an election there fought on development. The county changed its Municipal Development Plan. It overturned an Area Structure Plan after that development plan was made after electing a new council. The developer sued the county and the county won a summary judgment that it wouldn't even go to trial.

So the power is really with the local council on what they do. They get to say what happens in your town of Okotoks, whether these developments go ahead.

They set out a program which is the Municipal Development Plan, the MDP, and that kind of paves the way for how development will be done within the municipal boundary of Okotoks. It is really under the control of the people who elect the council to represent Okotoks of what they want Okotoks to look like in the future.

I've used facilities in Okotoks. The county here actually gives money to Okotoks because our residents use the facilities within the boundaries. I heard a council meeting or intermunicipal meeting saying that even your rec centre is way over the capacity of what it needs. And they were looking at building another rec centre.

So it's all about what do the people of Okotoks want? Why did you move there?

Paul Howard (19:10):
 My belief was always that when you have an issue in front of you in council that requires a public hearing, that there should always be an option for the county to say no. Otherwise, what's the point in having a public hearing where you're getting feedback from your public when you're not prepared to say no?

These meetings really demand that our local officials go in there with an open mind and they're not biased. If you're telling me that your representatives are saying they can't get out of it, why hold a public meeting? Why waste the public's time to go in and have that meeting?

That to me, I find very, very hard to understand. It's a question that I think should be asked of our local officials. If you are going in and you're not going to say no, why are we having a public hearing?

And does that negate your responsibilities to go in there with an open mind and not be, what's the word I'm looking for, not be prejudiced to one side or the other. You're meant to be able to have your mind changed in those circumstances. That's the point of a public hearing.

You shouldn't go in there already predisposed that you're going to approve this or deny it. In fact, when a public hearing is dawning on our officials, they're not even allowed to speak to the residents or the builders or anybody else about this so their mind isn't swayed one way or another.

Otherwise, what's the point in a public hearing? That's a question I'd be asking. If you're getting those kind of responses that this can't be stopped, well then why are we having public hearings? That's a very simple question.

And that to me raises other questions of are the people of Okotoks that are questioning these things, are they being represented fairly if their mind is already made up going into a public hearing, if that's the case?

Carlin Lutzer (21:03):
 Yeah. I attended the Hopewell Residential, that's the new subdivision that was just unveiled to the people of Okotoks a couple of weeks ago. They had a virtual town hall and yeah, I think they ran it very well, very informative, but it didn't really seem like stopping where they were looking for people's input was basically into the identity of the community.

Something that, with what Jeff was saying in regards to being there for the identity so that there's an Okotokian feel inside of the community, that Hopewell Residential group didn't really seem like they really knew that that was a big part of it. That's kind of what I picked up.

I think we can go back and listen to that conversation again, but them unveiling their idea for the community and yet it didn't seem like having that Okotokian feel inside of the community was necessarily on their radar.

But the sense that I got out of that meeting, that virtual town hall, was just like, "Yeah, this is happening. There's going to be a few changes that are made," but it never was part of the equation that the community could stop this if they had any major concerns with it.

And I'm not saying the community has major concerns with this community in particular. I think the majority of people don't have problems with growth, but I just think we're seeing what's happened in different areas like D'Arcy, Wedderburn, and there's some major concerns with development in there.

There's some major concerns with some of the builders, whoever they're allowing in here. Paul, we have some history with that. We saw a place that the building, brand new building was right in what community? That was Wedderburn. Horrible build, embarrassing.

So who's allowing these builders to come in? Developers, the town, are we running these builders out so that they never come back? Because I've seen some terrible builds lately and the building standard has sunk to a new low and buyers have to beware and that's really unfortunate. It's making me really mad.

Paul Howard (23:53):
 Well, and it wouldn't surprise me and I think it would make anybody mad that knew about the circumstance you're talking about. There was a home that we went into and I remember it very, very clearly. The carpet had been laid, the flooring had been laid and they were doing some finishing touches.

And as we were walking around, there was just debris all over the floor on the new carpets and down the stairs. And then I was aware of the neighbours which had purchased a property, had told me, one of the neighbours had told me that they had to have the house jacked up, new concrete foundation laid because it wasn't thick enough for the house and they'd had all sorts of construction problems.

It had cost them a lot of money to put this particular issue right and that there was some kind of action against a builder from the residents which had purchased there.

Now for me, the county or in this case the Okotoks municipality is responsible for granting occupancy after those buildings have been built. And if that is the case and what I was told was true, then that also lays a lot of other questions which people should be asking when they're purchasing the home and maybe of their own inspectors.

I don't know if there's an enhanced inspection, you'll know more about this, that you can purchase when you're purchasing a home. I would suggest that everybody does that, especially when purchasing a new home.

Carlin Lutzer (25:30):
 Absolutely.

Paul Howard (25:32):
 Also, Carlin, on that viewing, the drywall was just... I mean, the finish was not up to snuff. It really wasn't up to the standard that you'd expect from a new home.

So I agree with you there. I see why you have those concerns. And I think that that's an opportunity for a conversation potentially with the development department if people are having those issues and concerns that they should be having with Okotoks.

I mean, I don't think anybody goes into council like, look, we got to remember when these councillors are elected, they're our neighbours. I mean, these are people that live there. So you would imagine that you would go in there with all of the best intentions to do the best by the people that live currently in Okotoks.

These are your neighbours right now, but it seems like we get into council and what we did know before goes out of the window and then something else happens.

But it'd be interesting if they could explain that clearer to us so we'd have a better understanding of what those plans are for the traffic. I agree with you. Okotoks is not the same as when my parents moved there about 25 years ago where it was kind of a sleepy little town with not very much traffic and old town Okotoks was pretty much all you had for shopping.

It has evolved since then. I'd argue that there were some good things that people might like that are in Okotoks and that's why it's popular. But I guess hearing from you, the concern is what is this going to become? And this isn't why we moved here to have all of these high-density buildings.

Okotoks' planning framework has changed immensely over the years. They used to develop around three, four units per acre and that's apparent. Okotoks is about what, 10,000 acres with about 10,000 homes or something like that. I don't know what it has now, but about 10,000 homes and you can do the math from that because with that population comes all of those things that you need.

And I think it's worth fighting for actually, Carlin.

Carlin Lutzer (27:39):
 Yeah, I do as well. And I feel that the growth could be done a lot slower. Let's look at Drake Landing and the solar community. They had the geothermal, they had the solar community, which back in the day, and obviously that was years ago, I think that was implemented in 2007.

So there was nobody on today's current council that is responsible for that community, but it was very innovative and it made headlines right across the world for what Drake Landing was doing.

But you look at that today and the way the town jumped on something that was new, something innovative, something very environmentally friendly, but now that just ended up costing the Town of Okotoks lots of money, I won't even throw out a figure, to reclaim everything, to take things back to the way things were.

My concern is that now that this pipeline is up and running, that we are going to make some massive mistakes that will never be reversed inside of the growth speed.

I don't mind seeing that 2%. If we hit 55,000, that still seems like a lot, 55,000 by 2049, that's still a very, very quick speed, but I just don't know why we need to feel that we need to throw out the characteristics.

And when people talk about moving to Okotoks, they don't necessarily talk about the rivers, the river valley and all the extra bonuses. They talk about the space between the houses, the road structures, and again, back to D'Arcy and Wedderburn, what's going on there and now seeing the new community of Tilsa going up where they're just packing people in there.

And again, I believe that the town along with the developers have a good plan, at least for east-west roads, but the east-west roads don't matter. It's the north-south to get you across the river that are just going to become insane.

Paul Howard (30:04):
 Well, I'd also ask who are we building these houses for? When we look at Canada's population, between July and October last year, the population dropped by 76,068 people as a result in that drop in non-permanent residents.

I mean, this comes on the back of a lot of caps on immigration. So I do wonder maybe now is the time for places like Okotoks and even Calgary to take a step back and let the dust settle on what's been built and then making sure that the infrastructure is keeping up with development.

And that is and always has been one of my main arguments when it came to Foothills County that isn't used to building higher-density projects and large projects, is are we building for the success of the people that are moving in there?

It's all well and good throwing up a home. I know that the issue has been affordability, but Carlin, when I look at the real estate market in Okotoks, we're looking at a small two-bedroom apartment in a condo complex being $500,000 and $600,000 and that's quite the norm.

And I just have to ask, first of all, who's moving in there? Who can afford that in an affordability crisis? And are we doing right by the residents that are in Okotoks?

And I think it's a good question to ask. I don't think it's an attack on the council or the current policies of your council. I just think it's a fair question to ask.

And if the people of Okotoks, Carlin, are worried, the only way to change what's happening is for those people to turn up in council and to speak with their councillors, their representation, the development department at every opportunity they have when a public hearing comes about.

That's the only way your councillors will clearly know because a lot of the times they just think it's a few people that are NIMBYs, not in my backyard, but it goes deeper than that.

I'm definitely not against development. I was just in our local council speaking on a development that came up and if you were going to be developing in Foothills County, that was the area to develop.

I said that when I was speaking. I was more concerned about what are we doing for infrastructure? We're building a roundabout near where this development was happening. We've built a thousand homes in that area in Foothills County.

We didn't even have the money in our funds to build the one roundabout left over from building a thousand homes. So now that's coming out of my taxes and everybody else's taxes that live in Foothills County to put roundabouts in.

And we probably need three according to my local councillor that just got elected. We probably need three and I'm going to end up paying for that on my taxes because we didn't collect enough that building will pay for the infrastructure.

And that really is the key as well. There's a lot more working cogs to this and I'm not familiar with what Okotoks collects from its builders or what's going in offsite levies there. I hope that they're collecting enough. I don't know because I haven't looked.

I don't believe that Foothills County is. And that was what I was there to change, not necessarily building more homes at a much lower density, by the way, than what Okotoks is doing.

Carlin Lutzer (33:46):
 Well, yes. When I talked to Jeff Green, he mentioned that the developers will be, some of the offsite levies will be going to the new expanded sewage system that needs to happen because of the new growth.

And again, I'm thinking here as someone that has been in the town for a while, can I get excited about sewage being expanded for us? Is that a benefit to me? Or should that just be a cost that is covered by the developer in the first place?

Because what we need to see, what I feel that the community needs to see and where we'd be a little bit more comfortable with growth, is if we were addressing the 32nd Street issues, if we were addressing the traffic flow, if we were putting in new things.

Again, I always come back to Northridge Drive in between D'Arcy and Wedderburn and we put a traffic... There's four traffic lights there.

We could have minimized that to a traffic light south of the D'Arcy turnoff there where you turn into Starbucks and Safeway and one north by the car dealership, by the GM car dealership. You have two.

If we're talking traffic flow, it feels like the town has not proven themselves as putting on their big boy pants in being a city because we are a city.

I think sometimes we hide behind that town terminology and we are not ready for the growth of 96,000 people by 2049.

You start thinking, okay, well, if 32nd is still 10 years off, I know we're doing a traffic study, a traffic assessment study's coming out. They come out every five years, but let's say even okay, the traffic assessment says that yeah, 32nd needs to be developed.

We're still probably five years away from that 32nd being doubled and by then our growth is going to be so much more.

And I just don't think we are in a position to grow at 4%. We're not.

Paul Howard (36:13):
 Yeah. And if other Okotokians feel like that, then you guys need to be out at every public hearing. If they can't get to the public hearing because they're working, sending a letter in so your council knows how the public are feeling and again, signing those petitions because maybe your council just isn't simply aware.

I mean, there are some good things. I mean, I love Okotoks. I love the feel of Okotoks. There are definitely some good things that have been done there and maybe more of that needs to be done.

The shopping centre, for instance, that's been made on the east side there with the Safeway and the new Shoppers which is up there, that helps relieve some kind of traffic flow because now those amenities are more local and maybe you need to have that redeveloped certainly in the dense areas where they're not having to travel as far to get what they need.

If they need a toilet roll, they're not travelling down that main traffic flow and helping clog it up, for instance. That is one of the issues which I can see could help traffic.

I hear you on the traffic planning there and how it's done. And I've got to say, if you look at Calgary right now, their traffic planning was awful and they're now having to redo Deerfoot, which has been a complete choke point around the Southland Drive area and they're spending millions and millions and millions on putting overpasses in and doing those things.

And this is why I am a firm believer that infrastructure must come before development. And you're not getting that in Okotoks. You guys have to stand up and let the council know that this is the sticking point for the residents as well.

Carlin Lutzer (38:00):
 Well, and unfortunately it's a little bit of the Canadian way that we... It's not like Field of Dreams, if you build it, they will come. It's like they're here and now we're going to build it. And it's reverse.

And I don't know if they need that in order to have grants and get things from the province or what. And they need to show that, okay, we have major traffic issues so now we're going to build the overpass that we need.

And I've used this example before. You go down to the States, you're like, okay, what are they building? They've got overpasses here and they've got... But there's no development or anything, but it's because they build it before the people show up and that would save millions of dollars in the long run.

Even look at 32nd. Years ago when they put that 32nd Street bridge in, if they would've doubled it at the time, you think of the cost savings. I know it would've been a tough pill to swallow back in the day, but now it's probably four times what it would've cost them to double it when they did put that single-lane bridge in.

But no, I hear you, Paul. It's really up to the people of Okotoks. It's really up to, you would hope that we have a council in there that wants to keep the ear to the ground and to stand up for what the people want.

Will they do that? Because it's a tough fight. But will the people show the councillors that this is what we're feeling?

And again, I don't think it's that we're anti-growth. We're at a point where we're at sustainable growth. Even look at the schools. The schools are maxed out.

I think on paper, HTA and the Comp are high 90% at capacity, but the way those capacities are looked at is by square footage. But if you take away the gymnasiums from those schools, where those schools are sitting at is in the 120s to 130% capacity.

And we keep adding more and more people every year and another high school is what, five, 10 years out of the way.

Again, it's just like we've hit the gas pedal on the growth, but where is our education? Where's everything else catching up and who actually set that 4%?

Paul Howard (40:41):
 It's interesting that you bring up education. It's definitely something that whenever I've seen a development come across, people have, as one of their main bones of contention, talked about the schools and how full the school system is.

And I would argue that it goes beyond that because you can have a school that's 50% full and let's say it fills up with students. There are other resources that are missing.

I'll give you an example. A school takes their students out snowshoeing by us. The school's grown in size. Now they need some $4,000 of new snowshoes because they want to continue giving this extra activity to their students.

So where do they get that money from?

So it's not just about the schools being full and what they can take and sometimes they might be including the gyms in those figures. But what's more concerning is that our local municipalities have no control on when those schools are built.

And I think that the province reacts in a very reactive manner when it comes to building more. They wait until they're full. So those students that are in that generation that's in that school are working with full schools while they're building another one later on because the schools are full.

They don't say, "Oh, we think that there's going to be full schools. Let's build another one." It's a reactive situation.

So I mean, it's a shame. There should be more control, I believe, to the local municipalities on that so they can build and have that infrastructure ready, but they don't even get a say in that, which it's actually really quite disturbing, especially when you open up your new assessments that you've all gotten and you've seen how much goes to schools and we locally have little to no say in what gets built and our councillors that we elect have little to no say in when they build the next school.

Carlin Lutzer (42:37):
 Oh yeah. I look at Auburn Bay. Many people moved to Auburn Bay and for years Auburn Bay did not have a school and people are like, "We moved here because they said that they were going to build a school."

And by the time this school was actually made, I think some of the kids were graduated and out of Auburn Bay already.

So it is. It's a process and there's no guarantees when those schools will be made. And our schools are certainly encroaching, especially the high schools. We certainly need a new one.

But Paul, I don't want to close the door to anybody. I don't want to close the door to the town. I'm doing this because I want to keep the conversation going.

I want people to talk about it again, sit in that open house on Saturday, just hearing people and how their feelings were towards growth, but I want people to know that they can be the voice of change, that they need to reach out to their councillors so that the councillors have an idea as to how they're feeling.

I know that it's not just enough to voice your concern on Facebook and hope that that gets through.

I will be making a presentation to council to please listen to the people, listen to the people and help us again understand why we're hitting the gas pedal so fast on this growth thing.

And let's try to leave a legacy for the people that are in council and the mayor and the people that are in charge right now to leave a legacy that they can be proud of and a legacy where people are like, "You know what? You guys did a great job because you listened to us. We really felt that we had a place that we could talk to you about."

But right now that again, back to that messaging where it feels like, "No, we can't really do anything about it."

Well, who's in charge? That's what I'd like to know.

Paul Howard (44:45):
 The people are ultimately in charge as the people that pay the taxes and the people that are representing us in local council are our neighbours. I mean, they are.

I have a great respect for even ones that I may disagree with or have disagreed with. I have a great respect that they stood up and put their name forward to run for that position because it's not something that I necessarily would volunteer, or not, well I guess they get paid so it's not a volunteer for.

So I think that most people that enter that are willing to listen to the people. If you get enough people out there, you get enough signatures, I believe that that's enough to change the will of any of our neighbours.

And I also believe that our elected officials currently, with the power that is vested in them in the local municipality, have control over the shape of our future.

And I think if we're not getting out there and we're not telling them what we want that to be, then they're going to take their best guess.

And at the end of the day, they're human and no matter what they do, they're not going to have 100% of people happy. But if they follow the majority, normally, not always, but normally the majority has a good point and are right. And especially when it comes to local politics, that's who they're there to represent.

Carlin Lutzer (46:14):
 Yeah, no, for sure. Well, Paul, I appreciate your time today. And again, anybody in council that's an employee of the town, any even residents, I'd love to hear from you, would love to sit down and chat with you as well because I think that's a little bit of something that this town's not necessarily used to, is being under the magnifying glass, right?

We're growing, people are concerned and it is hard to feel like you're having somebody look down your, see what you're doing, but I think as the town gets bigger, that happens more and more.

And people are having these conversations because they love this town and they want to see things done properly and in a way that's not where we're looking back 20 years and like, "Oh man, look at these communities that we built 20 years ago. How brutal are these?"

Paul Howard (47:18):
 You get one chance to get it right. That's the thing with planning and if you don't get it right, it can be decades before you recover from that.

So I would say that it's very, very important right now for any town, municipality to get it right because you can't go back.

Carlin Lutzer (47:37):
 Yeah, for sure. Paul, thank you for your time.

Paul Howard (47:41):
 Thank you, Carlin. It was great to see you again.

Carlin Lutzer (47:47):
 Special thanks to Paul for taking the time to join me today. And at the end of the day, this conversation isn't about attacking council, developers, or the people trying to plan for the future of our town.

It's about making sure residents feel heard because growth changes everything. It changes traffic patterns, schools, recreation facilities, taxes, neighbourhood character, housing styles, emergency services, and ultimately the feeling people have when they say, "This is why I moved to Okotoks."

And maybe the biggest question of all is this: how much say do the people still have?

If public hearings matter, people need to show up. If community feedback matters, people need to speak. And if residents want a certain vision for Okotoks, it can't stop at conversations online.

Whether you agree with the current direction or completely oppose it, democracy at the municipal level only works when people participate.

So I'd love to hear from you. What kind of Okotoks do you see in 10, 20 or 30 years? Do you feel growth is happening responsibly? Do you feel informed? Do you feel represented?

Leave a comment, send a message or reach out directly. And as always, if you're enjoying these conversations, please like, subscribe, follow, and share the Okotoks Podcast.

It helps us keep bringing local conversations to the forefront and keeps community dialogue alive. Thanks for listening.

Big Announcer (49:21):
 You've been listening to the Okotoks Podcast, brought to you by Carlin Lutzer Real Estate. Thanks for joining us. We'll catch you next time.