The long road continues when it comes to acquiring land for the southwest dike.

Council on Monday moved to start the process of expropriating the land south of the traffic circle and along 12th Avenue.

Mayor Craig Snodgrass says it hasn't been for a lack of trying.

"There's three parts to this number one you just try between the Town and the landowner, try to make a deal, try to get the negotiations done and we spent well over three years trying to make that happen and at the end of the day we felt we put a very, very fair offer on the table for the landowner that the landowner declined," Snodgrass says.

He says they then decided to move to a Section 30 expropriation where the Town, the landowner and the Province all agree the project needs to be done and the negotiations are just deal with the cost of the land.

Snodgrass says they weren't comfortable with some of the asks" put forward by the landowner.

Now they've moved to a Section 8 expropriation and Notice of Intent to Expropriate.

"That's a lengthy procedure, it's very unfortunate that it's come to this, it's disappointing for me, there's no doubt there's been a lot of work put into this, a lot of time, but priority number one is still protection for High River," he says.

He says the expropriation has tight time lines but it'll still take a year to get done.

 

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