The Village of Rockyford passed a residential tax incentive bylaw to help spur development in the village.
Mayor Darcy Burke explains, after selling the former Rockyford school, the village has developed five lots on the school site that are ready to build on. To spur the development they have designed an incentive plan.
“The Council wants to get the residential lots moving and we have had some interest in it, but we want to move forward and make it attractive to move to our community,” says Burke. ‘We directed the administration to develop a property tax incentive.”
He explains if someone purchases a property to build a new home, in the first year they will pay 25 per cent of their total tax bill, the second year will be 50 per cent and the third year will be 75 per cent.
“So they will be living here for four years before they have to pay their entire property tax,” he said. “The way we set it up was the assessed value must increase by $175,000 in order for this bylaw to be applicable.”
While the province is facing a housing shortage, he says they want to promote looking at smaller communities.
“Our small communities have challenges, they don’t have all the services the bigger centres have, but we also know people are moving out of the cities… there are smaller communities in between and we need to entice people to come here, get their feet planted here, and have them realize that living in these small towns and villages is a great way of life.”

The community of Rockyford, through the great work of the Rockyford Lions Club, are showing support for a local couple who lost their home.
On the morning of December 20, the home of Kurtis Seeley and Jessie Fuch burned. The couple had only been on the acreage near Rockyford for a day, and one thing they did upon moving in was install smoke detectors.
Early that morning the smoke detector alerted them to the fire. They escaped unharmed.
The Rockyford Lions Club came through for the family and donated $6,000 after the incident.
They showed even greater support on February 8 when they hosted a Steak Dinner at the Rockyford Community Centre for the benefit of the couple.
“We had a really successful fundraiser for the Seeleys and we raised just about $4,000 there,” said Lion Darcy Burke.
This puts the total from the Lions to about $10,000.
“Everybody was thrilled they were with us to put on this fundraiser, if there is any bright part about it, smoke detectors save lives,” said Burke.