Some rural Alberta counties are breathing a little easier this week, after the UCP Government announced plans to exempt oil and gas companies from paying property taxes for three years, as long as they are drilling new wells and laying new pipelines.

Lacombe County Reeve Paula Law says although they don't have the full numbers or details of the plan quite yet, they are pleased that they decided against going with some of the scenarios they spoke about in the summer, one of which could have potentially raised their residential tax mill rate by up to 39%.

“Without the numbers and that we don’t know the exact details on that, so once we have all of that council and administration will sit down and work on a plan moving forward. But we are pleased with the Ministers announcement that they are taking a more collaborative approach regarding this assessment issue. They are going to take their time to relook at this over the next three years.”

Law says the newly appointed Minister of Municipal Affairs Tracy Allard made a point of meeting with as many municipalities as she could, and Law feels like they were listened to.

“The Province has committed to three years for looking at the overall plan, and until we get the numbers and how it all works and the details on this stuff we won’t have an idea how it’s going to what extent it will affect us.”

The UCP government also said that they would lower assessments on less productive wells, while also still going forward with the 35% property tax reduction on shallow gas wells and pipelines until 2023.