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Rimoka considering more than town’s land offer

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By Treena Mielke

No dollars have changed hands in a land deal between Rimoka Housing Foundation and the Town of Rimbey, and it appears the transaction may not be completed.

Coun. Joe Anglin, chairman of the Rimoka Housing Foundation, said the land deal with the town is not written in stone.

“We are entertaining other options,” he said. “There are four major developers who are interested who have come forward and we are interested and willing to listen.”

Anglin declined to name the developers.

Several weeks ago, council passed a resolution to offer to sell the housing foundation 8.62 acres of land north of the Rimbey Christian School for $200,000.

The partially serviced land is to be sold to Rimoka for a new residence that would allow seniors to stay there even as their need for care increases.

Anglin said under the current system, many seniors who require a higher level of care are forced to move to another centre where that care is available.

Dennis Beesley, president of the Bethany Group, the CAO of the Rimoka Foundation, said the plan for a new aging in place residence in Rimbey is in the preliminary stages.

“It’s really early days, we’re looking at land, but we don’t want to put the cart before the horse.”

The Rimoka Foundation was established in 1959 under the Homes for the Aged Act.

The foundation’s first lodge, the Golden Leisure Lodge, was opened in November of 1969 on land donated by the County of Ponoka with contributions by the partnering towns.

In October 1972 Parkland Manor was completed by the province and handed over to the foundation. Ten years later, the administration of Reid Manor in Ponoka and Kansas Ridge 1 and 2 in Rimbey were transferred from the province to the foundation.

The foundation was established as a management body under new legislation called the Alberta Housing Act in 1995 and at that time a representative of the Royal Canadian legion No. 66 and the foundation became responsible for the administration of additional seniors housing services including Legion Anniversary Arms and Slater Place.

Ponoka Community Housing, Rimbey Community Housing and Rimbey Rural and Native Housing, previously under the auspices of the province, were placed under the umbrella of the foundation. Two years later the governing order was again amended to include the Town of Ponoka Community Housing units and the administration of the provincially funded Rent Supplement Program.

The name of the foundation was formally changed to the Rimoka Housing Foundation as a reflection of the expansion of the organization’s mandate to include seniors and social housing services.