(File photo/northeastNOW)

By Cam Lee

Year in review: Humboldt

Year in review 2023: Humboldt mayor discusses major infrastructure

Dec 30, 2023 | 12:00 PM

As 2023 draws to a close, northeastNOW is taking a look back on the most important and impactful stories of the year, as selected by our reporters and editorial staff.

The mayor of Humboldt is discussing the year that was in the city, and what 2024 may have in store.

Michael Behiel told northeastNOW he was pleased with how 2023 played out for the most part, as the city made progress in some key areas including the Carl Schenn retention pond for flood mitigation.

“It’s caused those residents in that area no shortage of grief for many, many years,” Behiel said. “Finally being able to find a solution and start to put it into effect to hopefully alleviate their problems really was a good feeling.”

He added that they continued to do a lot of infrastructure work in 2023 while managing to keep property taxes low. Humboldt’s tax increase was set at 5.1 per cent in 2023 and 4.58 per cent in 2024, along with a 5.2 per cent increase in water and sewer rates.

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“When I took office I wanted to make sure we kept those property taxes as low as we possibly could, but recognize we needed to do a lot of work, and so a big kudos to my administration and staff over the last three years,” said Behiel. “They have worked extremely diligently to make sure that they’ve trimmed as much as possible where they can that’s unnecessary and moved it into key functions such as infrastructure repair and replacement.”

The city is also looking at different ways to address the housing shortage, especially with the BHP Jansen potash project inching closer to fruition.

Behiel explained they’ve searching for innovative ways to increase incentives for people looking to build new houses, whether that’s individuals or developers. That includes using the Housing Accelerator Fund, a federal government grant to help spur new housing development.

“Normally the money is given to the city or the municipality to use for their infrastructure-related costs,” Behiel explained. “But we recognize that we’ve got a lot of that in place already and we wanted to ensure that we brought development into the city, so we took a portion of that money and used it as an incentive to developers to come build houses and suites for that expected influx of people.”

Also for 2024, Behiel said he’s looking forward to the continued regional collaboration of local municipalities for emergency measures planning and other items.

Infrastructure needs are also an area of concern for Behiel.

“We’ve got a lot of infrastructure work that needs to be done. So we want to continue down that plan, and work on keeping the city accessible, inclusive, and habitable,” he said. “We pride ourselves on being the best place to work, live, and play, and that’s our core area of responsiblity and expectation that we will continue in that path.”

Inflation and higher costs are also a significant issue in municipalities across the country, Humboldt included. Behiel said they’ve been forced to adjust some expectations and goals.

“We’re seeing overages, and sometimes as high as 30 per cent with the inflationary rate,” he explained. “So we’ve had to really realign a lot of our plans in terms of development and economic growth to ensure that we’re still maintaining an adequate pace of priority but not putting the burden on the taxpayer any more than it already is.”