The Municipality of Rhineland and Altona are collaborating on a proposed joint economic strategy.

Members from the local business community have urged both municipalities to come up with a joint strategy to help boost the local economy.

Both council's have put together a steering committee to explore the idea, according to Rhineland reeve Don Wiebe.

"They are looking at what they can recommend going forward in terms of an appropriate strategy for both municipalities to work at. So, they are working very hard to come up with a proposed model," said Wiebe.

The steering committee will meet with local councils in January to discuss some of their initial findings.

Meanwhile, the role of the RPGA Planning District will change in 2018.

Wiebe, who is also the chairman for the planning district, said there are a large number of subdivisions in Rhineland which require an fair amount of management expertise. That's one of the reasons for some changes that will occur in the new year.

"We've now agreed going forward that we will create an RPGA hub. Part of creating that hub will involve making a specialty out of the building permits and subdivisions so that they would come under one office. A half-time position has been created and we have seconded Rhineland EDO to perform this role."

Meanwhile, the RPGA reports the value of building permits increased significantly in 2017 compared to the year previous, led by strong commercial growth.