High River council finds itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to developing some annexed properties in the northeast.

The land is along 112 Street East bordered by Highway 2 and 498 Avenue.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says not all the owners are on the same page.

"What it's all about is the area in the northeast corner of High River that we recently annexed, not very long ago did go through, and there was an agreement with all the landowners that everybody signed that outlined if we were to annex that area what the future looks like as far as water, sewer, servicing from the Town and what their developments would look like," he explained. "That was the agreement that no development would occur until an Area Structure Plan was complete."

The ASP outlines where things like roads would be along with water, sewer and other services along with the land uses.

Under the Town's rules that ASP is the responsibility of the landowners who want to develop the area and at their cost.

The two landowners who want to develop want to move ahead and work on the ASP later with the Town and also want the Town to upfront the costs of servicing, something the Town says it will not do.

"Since we've annexed a couple of the owners are a little bit more gung-ho to get things rolling than the others and they're trying to find a way around getting a couple of sub-divisions done prior to a full blown Area Structure Plan," Snodgrass says. "Most of this council's been around for eight years or more we've all seen what happens when you circumnavigate and leapfrog development processes in the name of the economy or helping somebody, these areas have to be planned properly and they have to go through the process."

He says they're not on council to represent the developers, but for the entire population of the town.

A couple of side issues the developers brought forward are the future of the slip ramp road of Highway 2 south and Foothills County's plans for commercial development on the east side of Highway 2 directly across from their properties.

The Province wanted the slip ramp taken out immediately after the 498 Avenue overpass was built but costs have pushed the urgency of that farther down the list.

Council will discuss it again at its Committee of the Whole meeting June 28.

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