• It is a gateway intersection to downtown. The building is beyond repair and not being cleaned up by the owners. With it for sale, the town decided it was a good opportunity to revitalize this intersection.
• With the recent announcement of the Rails to Trails, the town feels this is a great entry point to get on the trail with parking and perhaps a kiosk building with washrooms in the future.
• The DARP and Flood Mitigation Project identified a need to get people into the downtown area and this is an opportunity to make some traffic changes to get people off a residential street (5^th St E) and onto Railway Avenue.

Town Land Reserves.

The Town is determining that value now that they have gained access to the building. The Town believes it will be approximately $50,000.

The cost for cleaning the site is through the land reserve. Road and/or parking improvements will be funded by Roads Capital Budget.

Yes. Options can be considered to move the house. Up to 75% of the total value will be paid if this option is chosen.

No. In extraordinary circumstances exceptions may be considered once a final purchase price has been determined. This will be dealt with on a case by case discussion with the homeowner.

Drumheller Land Corporation is planning to have vacant possession within 60 days of purchase date.

The Town will provide one site appraisal. If the owner wishes an additional appraisal to be considered, it will be at the owners’ expense.

No. The Town will not pay for homeowner legal fees.

No. The Province of Alberta has changed the floodplain in the valley several times – no less than four.

The current maps based on 2007 data and published in 2016, don’t just reflect historic flooding in the valley, they also provide a predictive risk analysis to the community, based on modelling of various flow rates. If your home is located in the floodway, flood fringe or overland flow area, this does not mean your property is required for purchase as part of the land acquisition process. Our two priorities for land acquisition are:

Phase 1 – properties that are in the floodway where no engineering solution can be reasonably implemented to protect the properties. 
Phase 2 – properties that are needed for the improvement or installation of dikes or other structural measures.
However, it does mean that your property requires a berm along the river so your neighbourhood is qualified to be designated as “protected.”

We have commenced with phase 1 land acquisitions. Detailed designs of structural enhancements are not yet completed for phase 2. Property owners impacted by phase 2 acquisitions will be contacted by Scott Land & Lease Ltd., likely by fall 2020. If you are not contacted by Scott Land & Lease, your property has not been identified as part of the land acquisition process as of now. If your neighbourhood is currently protected by a diking system, it is unlikely we will acquire your property. If your property is adjacent to an existing dike, we may need to acquire some portion of the property to enhance the dike. Please reference this website for further details on provincial flood hazard maps. https://floods.alberta.ca

We are not aware of any financial institution denying a mortgage based on provincial flood hazard maps. If you are aware of a situation, please contact our office at drmfloodinfo@drmprogram.com and provide us with the name of the lender and what they specifically denied in terms of a mortgage.

The land acquisition process is the same for all properties and is based on the land acquisition policy adopted by Town Council in 2020.

Once the engineering consultant confirms a portion of your property is required for berm construction, the following process is followed:

• Scott Land & Lease (the land agent) calls you to inform your property has been impacted
• An engineering consultant prepares a drawing that shows where the berm is located on your property
• The flood office will arrange and pay for one market value appraisal report from a certified appraiser based on the location of the berm. Should a second appraisal be requested by the landowner this will be at your own expense.
• Scott Land & Lease will visit you, to review the berm alignment and answer your questions.
• An offer to purchase will be provided based on the market value appraisal.
• If the offer is not acceptable to you, you may proceed to the Land Compensation Board.
• In some cases we have sent the appraisers to look at your property before the final alignments. This has been done to speed up the process.

The Flood Office will be speaking with landowners impacted by dike construction in the coming months as we continue work on delivering the program. We will try to mitigate impacts to individual landowners, and in most cases will just be looking to purchase a portion of an individual property to facilitate dike construction; however, there are some cases where we will need to buyout entire parcels. The partial acquisitions will be done on a percentage basis based on the assessed value for the land.  The full buyouts will be done at fair market value, the greater of assessed or appraised value for the full lot.  More details are available in the Town’s Land Policy Document - https://floodreadiness.drumheller.ca/public/download/files/201056, which has been approved for use by our funding partners at The Province.

The Town of Drumheller prioritized areas for floodway buyouts based on the 1640m³/s design flood at the time of the funding applications.  The areas identified, and for which grant funding was made available are specific properties in Nacmine, West Rosedale and Rosedale and all of Lehigh.  Most of these buyouts are underway or have been completed. The Town does not have funds at this time for additional flood hazard area buyouts, as priority for funding must go to the purchase of land needed to construct the approved berms.

The updated Land Acquisition Policy can be found on the flood readiness website at: https://floodreadiness.drumheller.ca/be-informed/resources/land-assembly-documents.

The revised Policy combines the previous Policy (DRFM 02-20) and Purchasing Procedure document into a single document for clarity and transparency.  The new Policy also removes reference to the Drumheller Land Corporation and Chief Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Officer to reflect new project management structure. The document also updates some definitions and titles.