Lacombe County approved a bylaw last month that will open the gates for smaller subdivisions to take a bit more control in preventing rural crime.

The Residential Gates Policy allows residents to come together to put automated gates at the entrance to their subdivision, as long as emergency vehicles have access and public roads aren't being blocked.

County Manager Tim Timmons said it's a way for citizens to feel empowered and take additional steps to feel safe.

"Based on their concerns about rural crime, they asked if the County would allow them to install a security gate at the public road entrance to their subdivision. We did some research on it and really there were no other examples of that in Alberta, so we put pen to paper and created an agreement with them," Timmons explained.

The group that first brought forward the idea is made up of residents from the Westside Country Estates subdivision near Sylvan Lake.

The program is designed so that subdivisions can place gates at their entrance, but those gates must remain open during daylight hours and local emergency services must have access codes or ways to get through in the event of an emergency. 

Timmons said they have already been contacted by other local subdivisions to implement a similar system.

"Lacombe County Council is quite committed to assisting in preventing rural crime throughout the county. They felt this was a pretty neat initiative, and it was presented to us by that group. We didn’t come up with the idea ourselves, but we think it will catch on," he said.

Timmons continued, "It’s all about keeping the bad guys away. It’s one additional tool in our toolkit for combatting rural crime. The RCMP can’t be all things to all people, and this is allowing individual property owners to impose an additional measure themselves to prevent rural crime from striking their communities."

A resident of the subdivision Scott Getschel said they lucked out with a gate already being present but it had not been automated. From there, they lobbied to get the program moving forward and worked with the County to develop an agreement. 

"We went over and above to make sure all of our bases were covered with EMS, fire, police - all of that. We took that all into account, and the County had a few things they wanted us to add in and it's done really well. We haven't had any issues since we automated it," he said.

The gates open around either 6 or 7 a.m. (depending on daylight savings time) and are closed in the evening around 8 or 9 p.m. 

"Everybody's been really happy with it," Getschel said, adding that it helps them feel more secure. 

The cost of automating the existing gate was between $12,000 to $15,000 - all of which was covered by the community association and residents in the area.