OLDS — On June 9 at 1 p.m., the Town of Olds' council will hold a public hearing on a proposal to rezone two parcels of land in the southeast industrial park owned by SNDL Inc., formerly known as Sundial Growers Inc.
The request by SNDL is to rezone the land where it used to operate its marijuana cultivation business from direct control 7 (cannabis production) to light industrial 1.
The bylaw to enact the rezoning would also allow data centres to be a permitted use in the light industrial district.
Data centres house information technology facilities to build, run and provide applications.
They also store and run data on servers and consume a great deal of power.
In the fall of 2023, SNDL Inc. announced it was shutting down its Olds facility and consolidating its operations in New Brunswick.
When the SNDL facility opened five years previously, it was expected to eventually employ 500 people.
However, due to a difficult market environment, as the years went by, the company began shedding jobs at the plant.
By 2023 it was down to about 45 employees, Olds chief administrative officer Brent Williams said at the time.
The move was a real blow to the town, not only because of the loss of jobs, but because SNDL accounted for five per cent of the community’s tax base, at the time, about $450,000.
Municipal planner Kyle Sloan told council the proposal aligns with the town’s Southeast Industrial Area structure plan.
In regard to the opportunity to allow data centres in the light industrial 1 district, Sloan said, “this is a use that would not have been considered when the (land use) bylaw was written in 2001 so we're just updating the defined uses, that we have to adapt to current development trends.”
