Calgary’s debt is slated to rise above $4 billion next year and then begin falling after 2016, as the city’s rapid growth stokes concerns that more public borrowing will be needed to keep infrastructure expanding apace.

There’s room to grow debt further, even while the debt is rising toward $4.3 billion in 2016 to finance projects like new recreation centres and suburban water lines. Councillors are split — and not along simple liberal-conservative lines — on how to proceed when borrowing opportunities open.

“We’re not in a crisis now, but if we continue like this we will be,” said Druh Farrell, the inner-city council veteran who’s long been one of the most progressive voices.

Coun. Ward Sutherland doesn’t share her worry.

“We potentially could borrow $400 million to $500 million without causing any issues for our credit rating and any real high-end significant issues,” said Sutherland, vice-chair of council’s priorities and finance committee. He brands himself a fiscal hawk.

“There are consequences obviously on the payments per year.”

If there aren’t defined ways to pay for that extra debt, that sort of burden would require hiking taxes by a few more percentage points, city chief financial officer Eric Sawyer cautioned in an interview. The currently rotating debt that’s backstopped by property taxes will cost the city $66.3 million next year — while the rest of the $650.3-million obligation for interest and principal payments comes out of developer levies, ever-increasing utility rates, promised provincial grants and other costs.

With annual population increases expected to begin approaching 40,000, a proposed list of land expansions and priority lists is almost universally seen as inadequate. Council will approve about $80 million in additional borrowing to service a future suburb north of Stoney Trail, and Sawyer expects more pressure like that as debt room eases further.

“If council wants to move down that list faster, some additional borrowing is definitely a possible way to do it. It’s not the only way,” Sawyer said.

“If you take on a whole bunch of debt and go to your limits, you really are restricting what you can do further. Until that debt’s paid off, 15 years later, you’re handcuffing the organization on other things it may want to do.”

Provincial rules let council hold debt worth up to twice its annual revenue, and let debt payments — or servicing — consume up to one-third of its yearly income. The city’s own self-imposed limit is at 80 per cent of either legal ceiling, and council shot down a proposal co-sponsored by Sutherland this year to let Calgary ignore that self-set limit.

Farrell and Sutherland agree there are smart ways to incur debt. They differ on pace, as the finance vice-chair is more keen to borrow now to avoid construction inflation later.

“If we wait three years, we’re going to be paying 18 or 20 per cent more,” he said. “If we can borrow at 2.5, at that time it’s a good business decision to go ahead with the project and borrow the money.”

For Farrell, debt should accommodate growth, but only so far.