“Looking back at the year, we have to look at construction,” said Colby. “We’re up 40 houses, which is nice. We have more interest in development. One of the major things we did is purchase the golf course.”
Colby said staff have been working hard making sure the Carstairs Community Golf Club is up and ready to go in the spring.
“We hope the members who were there will come back and see the improvements and support the course,” he said.
One of the bigger events in town was the RCMP Musical Ride, which came to Carstairs in the summer.
“It was very successful,” he said. “Everyone enjoyed it. We had about 2,000 people come out for the musical ride.”
Colby said that people continue to move to the area. He said the town’s proximity to Calgary makes Carstairs attractive to young families.
“We’ve had more interest in development in Carstairs, which is nice,” he said. “Overall it was a good year despite the economic times. The town is still moving forward. People are still moving here.”
Colby said that the recent announcement by the province to expand Carstairs Elementary School will also benefit those young families.
“I think having 280 more seats in the elementary school for K-4 will be a great addition to the town,” he said. “It’ll help support our young family development and that’s really important.”
The town has also has the Mandalay Estates development north of Hugh Sutherland School on Highway 2A moving along, he said.
Mandalay has areas set aside for a potential new school, seniors' housing and tri-services (police, fire and ambulance) building.
“We’ve already set aside 10 acres for the new school that would come in there once we're up to capacity again,” he said. “Things are moving well in that direction. We’ve been planning ahead for all this. Things are going very well for the town at this time.”
The Town of Carstairs has plenty of projects ready to go in 2020, he said.
“The opening of the golf course will be a big thing for us, to get that up and running,” he said. “Of course, Mandalay will get back up and going with putting the road in and all the infrastructure in and start building. That’s important to us.”
Colby said the town has other developers looking into Carstairs.
“We have another person coming in and building a strip mall, which will be a nice addition to the main street,” he said.
“It’ll be a cannabis store, liquor store and one other. Things are going well. People still want to develop in Carstairs and people want to move to Carstairs. I’m looking forward to another good year.”