JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Welcome back to another installment of Calgary Conversations. We're always happy to have you. Today we're going to take a look at our growing city and the needs that come with the growing city and all the different things The City's trying to do to address how we grow economically.

Today we have Oyin Shyllon, our project manager for Prairie Economic Gateway and some of the work going on there.

So Oyin, welcome.

OYIN SHYLLON

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Maybe you can because Prairie Economic Gateway is, I don't know. I can't define it in my mind. Maybe you can define it for us. What is it?

OYIN SHYLLON

Sure. I'd be happy to do it. The bottom line is, what we’re trying to build here, is a major industrial hub, and the name Prairie Economic Gateway comes from the fact that we are ideally located in the prairies, and we are the biggest city closest to Canada's number one port seaport. That's the Port of Vancouver. And so, all the freight traffic that comes from that port, the closest big city is Calgary.

And then from there, we can move goods through the Canadian prairies to anywhere in the North American continent.

So, an inland port, if I'm understanding you. Right. And this one is a bit unique and that we've partnered with Rocky View.

OYIN SHYLLON

Yes. So, it's the very first time that the city of Calgary and Rocky View County have partnered in this type of a way. It's not unique to cities to partner with other municipalities. I can give two examples. Some may have heard of and some may not have heard of. So if we go a little bit east, if we go to Winnipeg, we have Centreport.

So when Centreport is a partnership between the City of Winnipeg and also another rural municipality, and if we go slightly up north, I know we don't like talking about Edmonton a lot, but

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Well, not on this show anyways.

OYIN SHYLLON

So, there is a partnership between five municipalities.

It's the City of Edmonton and four other municipalities. So, five in total. And they're actually also building an industrial hub. So that one is called the Alberta Industrial Heartland and the one in Winnipeg is called Centreport. So, it is not without precedent.

But it is precedent setting for Calgary.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So now in the end, this is maybe my very elementary understanding of, of municipal politics, but couldn't we just take over that land and make it all Calgary? Why would we partner with somebody? It's right on Calgary. Sort of on the edge. Why wouldn't we expropriate?

OYIN SHYLLON

It's a good question. So, there are lots of details I can go into. I will share two with some that hopefully convince you that the first one is when we look at all of the cities, not just in Canada, if you look at throughout North America, but especially if we look at Canada, we notice that even when cities do that, when they take on more land, a lot of industrial development happens, right?

You know, right around their borders. So, we will not be solving that problem. We will be pushing it out a little bit further. There are lots of nuances to why that happens. One of them is people trying to get you know, more land, real estate, you know, so the further out you go, the more land real estate, the less you compete with others close to you.

And also the rates that you have to pay are slightly more competitive. So, people do tend to go out there. So, if we do annex those lands, there's a good chance, you know, interest to go even further out. And then we will have to continue annexing until we get to our borders and Alberta borders. But that's, me being a bit, joking with you about that.

The second reason why it does make sense to actually, you know, collaborate or cooperate? There's actually rigorous evidence in support of it. So, I think there are many examples, but maybe the one I should point to is in 2021, a number of researchers, at the University of Alberta did a study. So they looked at data.

I hope I remember this accurately, but they looked at data from 2006 to 2016, and they looked at, well over 100. I may not remember the exact number of municipalities. And looking at those who tried to do that, who tried to annex, rather than, actually just cooperate and try and build a working relationship.

The evidence is if you are a growing city and we are a growing city, or if you're a growing municipality, there is more benefits to actually partnering, to compare to actually taking over this land. And some of that has to do with the notion I shared with you earlier, which is, you know, people keep on moving for their homes.

And so those two pieces are probably the best way to explain, you know, like in grounded economic analysis, why it makes sense to, to cooperate other than annex those lands.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So if I'm picturing what this is going to look like, we're on, a ARIN, a rail line, and it'll be a giant industrial park. Is that right? Can you show me, like, is it a lot of warehouses? Is a truck like, what does it look like?

OYIN SHYLLON

Yes. I'll put in a plug. We have a webpage. I will say it is the City of Calgary's first AI-inspired web page. So it's really good.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

We got two stories in one day. You heard it here first, folks.

OYIN SHYLLON

Yes. So, we will do more work, to build on that platform.

So you can get a better sense of the location and where and where it is actually situated. But in addition to that, and if I really dive in, the unique thing about this is it's the anchor point, because we all in the team, we call it the nucleus.

The nucleus of the gateway is a real park. And you know, so if you take a look at Calgary and look at the southeast just beyond CP Casey's intermodal yard, you will see that the rail line, the main rail line, continues to move south eastwards, out of Calgary. And so the lines are actually just north.

They're adjacent actually the rail line is part of the development. So, the lines are north and it allows you to have spur lines come off that main line. And so if you're a manufacturer, what you would do is rather than have your goods come via rail and then you get a truck, you pick it up and then you move it to wherever it is in the city, which could create congestion.

What would you rather do is actually be located in that park. Have the sprawl lines come into your warehouse? Drop off the goods? I like chocolate. I will use this as an example. So if you get cocoa from anywhere, and you bring it in through the spur lines, you bring it into the, manufacturing plant you can actually make to, you know, make chocolates there, and you don't have to literally move anything.

You just put it back into that cart and you could go anywhere.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So I worked at the Herald for a while, and they have a rail line. They used to bring in the giant news rolls right into the building. So I can totally picture what that would be like and how convenient it would be.

So with all things, when it comes to the city, everything's an investment and a return on investment.

You tell us, how much are we putting into this and what do we expect to get out?

OYIN SHYLLON

these are early days. We do have some very preliminary estimates, but we're trying to understand we're working with many partners. This is like it's an army doing this work in some ways, because it touches every single department here at the city. I try to do a count just the other day of people directly involved in the work, and it's over 150 already, and I'm sure we don't have everybody.

And so what that team is doing is they're trying to understand all the intricacies. So for instance, you need storm ponds. You need storm management facilities. Where will they be? Sure, you need to identify the road network and the expansions that you need. So we have some very preliminary calculations. We do know that they need some fine tuning, but it is a significant City of Calgary investment.

I will say that, you know, we've done an economic impact assessment, just based on some of the of the work that will be done. We know that some of the investments will be city investments. We also know that will be complementary private sector investments if we look only. Well, when I say city government. So City of Calgary, Rocky View County, we're hoping to get support from the province and the feds as well.

And so if you look at that in ballpark, we know through this work there'll be more than 6750 jobs created.

We also know that if you think about the multiplier impact in terms of economic output, we know and that's all the work over many years. We know that that's going to get us to over $1.6 billion in output.

So it is. And that's just the investment component. That's not when we actually have lots in there. And we actually have development occurring over time.

And you know, people producing different goods. For instance, I don't know if it'll be a cocoa, chocolate chocolate factory there. If that comes in, there are different dynamics about, you know, the number of jobs that will be created. So some of the information about when it becomes operational, we don't know now, but in terms of setting it up for success, we do have the estimates for that.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

What stage of this are we at right now? Is this sort of the blueprint stage that we're at?

OYIN SHYLLON

It's a good question. So when we look at this as a team, and you're going to make me say something that I think the team will be happy to hear is we have a manager of the team, which is, we want to be good. We don't want to be lucky. So this is all about trying to get everything right.

There are five pillars of work that we need. We know we need to do to get this right. The first one, which is what you're talking about. And, you know, some people would call it a blueprint, but municipalities call it city and region shaping. It's some of them would also call it planning, you know, urban planning.

And so what that body of work does is it begins to define and guide the rules around how we will use those lands, how movement to the court through those lands. And so that's what we've been focusing on. So there are five pillars. This is pillar one.

It's the foundation for all of the other pillars.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

The area structure plan.

OYIN SHYLLON

Okay. You know this!

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

I watch a lot of council.

OYIN SHYLLON

Yes. And the unique thing - maybe there actually two unique things.

This is the first time the City of Calgary and Rocky View County has co-created. It's a joint planning effort, co-creating the area structure plan. So that area structure plan went to the Infrastructure Planning Committee on July 29. It will go to council on September 10.

And in addition to the area structure plan, we discovered that there are some adjustments, amendments that need to be made to the Municipal Development Plan, which is the bigger plan for the entire city. So those amendments are minor amendments. It's just identifying certain connections to the rest of the city's network that are missing, because of where the lands are located.

And there's also the Rocky View county, City of Calgary, into a Municipal Development Plan, so that the major change in that into Municipal Development Plan is because rail is the centre of activity here. We've added east southeast railway corridor to that, into the Municipal Development Plan, so we can actually focus investments around it. So I mean, and rail is the centrepiece of what we're doing.

Like if you think about the rail park, we know that from 1995 to 2022, we know that the volume of goods in Alberta and have gone through rail have increased 8.8 times. As much more significant than if you think about truck. It's much more significant than if you think about, you know, air freight, those types of things.

So rail is significant.

But beyond that, the beauty of the location we have is it's also proximity to Stoney Trail. So we do have, you know, we have a connection to trucking. And it's also through Stoney Trail and Airport Trail, connected to YYZ. So it's, you know, just looking at all of the transportation network and making sure it's robust.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And having rail at the heart of this is also environmentally responsible, I would think.

OYIN SHYLLON

100%. So it makes sense economically, but also from a climate friendly sense. We know that, you know, like, I think it's one gallon of fuel through to, if you, if you use a train travels well over. I forget the particular number, but it's hundreds of kilometres. So you consume less fuel.

The degradation of the environment is much, much less, you also, because of the freight, you can move more things rather than getting many more trucks, on the road. So it is significantly environmentally friendly.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

That rail is a popular topic in Alberta these days. So we're keeping with the theme.

Looking forward. When could we see the first warehouse? Open the sliders and let a train in?

OYIN SHYLLON

It's going to be years out. I mean, in City speak, we usually think in the four-year cycles. So we’re in the 2023-2026 cycle; it will likely be in the next cycle. And so what we're doing now, so next year and 2026 is preparing. So there are a number of things that have to happen after we have the infrastructure plan.

There is another level of planning that needs to occur. So we will you know, so it's called in in the county speed conceptual scheme and land use plan. So that will occur next. And that will be a lot of work that would happen next year. But also if you think about all the infrastructure investments we need to make, we need to be careful and thorough to make sure they will be robust and stand the test of time.

So there'll be lots of functional planning studies that will occur next year and the year after to get us ready, for 2027.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So early in a plan like this is only as successful as those that are interested in it. What have you heard from the community that would use this sort of this? I'm going to call it the Prairie Economic Gateway.

OYIN SHYLLON

Yeah. So we've got to I'll go back to something I talked about earlier, which is we realize the five pillars of work that we need. You've identified the importance of the shift, one, which is we are working. And within the team we describe this as an economic development playbook, which is making sure we have people who will actually benefit from using, these industrial lands and actually get attracting them, you know, getting the word out there and making sure they're aware of it.

And as they plan into the future and prepared for it. So to do that, we're working with our colleagues. They're constantly reaching out to the global marketplace to make sure we're, we're ready for that. So we have ongoing conversations. We've seen some early requests for information about what this could look like.

So we then mostly focused on manufacturing. So pharmaceuticals, life sciences, those types of data centres. So there is some interest is just interest just in the general marketplace for this type of industrial play.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And when it comes to the return on investment, I just want to pick up on something you talked about earlier, which was if we expropriate and try to bring this inside city limits, that usually draws people further out. So by cooperating with, is it the MD of at the County of Rocky View? How is that tax base going to be shared now?

Because whereas we haven't driven it all out to Rocky View, we also are keeping all that tax base within Calgary. How does that formula work?

OYIN SHYLLON

I think by the time we're done you'll go through all five pillars. So the fourth pillar of work is really identifying that piece of work, and it's all the agreements that we will need to have in place to actually make this work.

I think we may be the first. I can't say for certain, but we are pioneering an approach that we when I say first, at least in Alberta, where we call it a shared investment, shared services, shared benefit framework, that's grounding the entire municipal agreement that we would have that into municipal agreement.

The current plan is to take it to Council after we have the infrastructure plan and those plans approved. The simplest way to describe what that agreement will look like is, Rockyview County makes a contribution; City of Calgary makes a contribution to make this work. And at the back end, the benefits they receive with respect to municipal property taxes are proportional to the investments that they've made.

OYIN SHYLLON

So it is an incentive, for each municipality to try and support this as best as they can, with all the resources and the might, the that, the that we have, because we know we've done estimates, we did get third party advisors to help us with this, but we've got done estimates of what that could look like at the back end, when returns actually come in.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

So I think you gave us three of the five pillars. Can you just really quickly blast off the five pillars for us just so we know what they are?

OYIN SHYLLON

Oh yes, I'd be happy to. So we the first pillar we think of is planning. So that's, you know, city and region shaping and building. The second is infrastructure and the infrastructure solutions and the network, for the gateway. The third is municipal service. And so we need emergency fire response. We need snow clearing, making sure that all of that is thought of.

And we are prepared a day one when activity starts there. And the, the fourth pillar, which we covered a little bit, you know, that's the, you know, the agreements, you know, funding and making sure all the agreements in place for this work. And then the final piece is the economic development playbook.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And we talked about it a little bit at the beginning. But with Calgary's growing population, the fact that we're seems almost every year we're closer to the doorstep of 2 million. How important is something like this to ensure that the future of Calgary continues to be prosperous?

OYIN SHYLLON

You know, that's a really, really good question.

And I think about it in two ways. The, you know, the first one is when you, I've heard and I do have to look at the data to confirm, but a lot of people describe Calgary as the best connected mid-sized city and mid-sized in the sense of the population around 2 million anywhere in North America.

So if you think about our proximity to the Port of Vancouver, we are the biggest city, as I said earlier on, connected to the Port of Vancouver. Port of Vancouver is the fourth largest by freight cargo, in North America. So lots of things move through there. We have that access.

So within one day you can get to Calgary.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

And Rupert's up that way as well.

OYIN SHYLLON

Rupert is further north. Yes.

OYIN SHYLLON

We have the second biggest, largest airline in Canada. It's headquartered here. If you also think about rail, CPKC is right here.

And CPKC, unlike CN, although we do have proximity to CN, unlike CN, it gets to all three countries on the continent. So the merger that occurred last year extended their rail line from, I'm going to say something like 20,000 km to 32,000 km, you know, across three continents. So we are like ideally suited for this type of development.

Well, the other is, you know, that kind of thinking about locally. But if you think about it more globally, the way I like to think about it is for centuries, I mean, for thousands of years, you know, so if you go back to, the Hammamet in Egypt, when goods, when the pyramids were built, when goods and ideas and services moved, they moved from the Nile to the Red Sea.

And it was through an economic corridor.

And so we've learned we can go, you know, over the years you can think about the Silk Road, the old Silk Road from Rome to China, hundreds of years, probably even a thousand years until the Black Plague occurred. That was a predominant trade route.

And if you think to the present day, China is building the Belt and Road Initiative because they realize the importance of economic corridors like this.

If you think about Europe, you think about Ten T. So that's the Trans European network for transportation. And it's connecting all of Europe through rail, air traffic, road traffic and making sure that we have those economic corridors in place. And if you think about North America, we also have the CANAMEX corridor. And so this what we're doing here is that if you think about it like the final mile of the CANAMEX corridor, so you're building, you know, the connections everywhere.

And we're integrating with it with local industry here in Calgary. So I think it is, like a really, you know, promising thing to do.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

That is just fascinating. And, and the history lesson was nice as well. That was is there anything I've forgotten to ask you? Anything you want to share?

OYIN SHYLLON

I think if I was going to say, what would my colleagues want to make sure those that work with me every single day about this, on this work and what they would like me to share, I think one I've already told you, which is we want to be good. We don't want to be lucky.

And so we're putting in our best efforts every day to try and get this going. Another thing is we want to get our groove back. You know, that's one message we also share with each other. So, you know, getting a groove back is thinking about economic prosperity. We don't want to rest on our laurels. So for many years, Calgary, Alberta, we've had the fastest growth rate.

But we don't have to kind of sit on that. We have to prepare for the future that's to come. And so it's, you know, doing all the work that we need to do. So we are actually preparing for a future that's very robust and, you know, you and myself are happy to live here and generations to come. Our kids are happy to live here, too.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

Fascinating. Well, thank you very much for spending some time and knowledge with me today, Oyin.

OYIN SHYLLON

Oh, I'm so happy. I'm a big fan of your work, so I will continue to watch the rest of the conversations that you have.

JOSE RODRIGUEZ

You and my mum, but I appreciate it.