Council Update

Since our last update, there have been a few big-impact Council decisions and several others with smaller or more concentrated impacts. 

The “big-impact” decisions are:

• The Aggregate Resource Plan, shelved by the last council, is back in motion with preliminary terms of reference approved for a Stakeholder Advisory Committee

• The finalization of the 2023 budget results in a 3% property tax increase, lower than the originally anticipated 6% increase

• Of particular note is the preliminary glimpse of the revised Springbank ASP.

These are all discussed below.  Other decisions highlighted below include:

• The Janet ASP was amended to provide a land use strategy for the previous long-term development area, with changes to address residents’ concerns

• Approval of the 2023 Master Rates Bylaw, with follow-up direction to provide Council with information on a long-term strategy for utility rate structuring

• Approval of the Willow Park Conceptual Scheme in Springbank

• Refusal of a redesignation application in the agricultural area of the Bearspaw ASP

Long-awaited Aggregate Resource Plan moving forward

Following up on Councillor Wright and Mayor Kissel’s notice of motion, Administration brought forward terms of reference for a Stakeholder Advisory Committee that will be the first stage of developing a county-wide gravel policy.

The Stakeholder Advisory Committee will be chaired by an independent third-party and will include 4 resident representatives – two from each of country residential areas and agricultural areas – and two industry representatives. Committee members will be appointed by council after advertisement for volunteers and are to engage with the communities they represent to ensure that the Committee’s considerations are as fulsome as possible.

By the end of this year, the Committee is to:

• Identify principles to guide the drafting of the Aggregate Resource Plan

• Identify gaps in the previous draft Aggregate Resource Plan

• Suggest areas of improvement to the previous draft Plan

• Propose public and stakeholder engagement methods for the project.

To ensure that it proceeds successfully, the terms of reference were amended to require that its Chair report to Council on a monthly basis.

The terms of reference embed important key principles for the renewed ARP project.  These include:

• Incorporating location criteria for aggregate development within the County’s Municipal Development Plan to identify where gravel operations should be supported, restricted or prevented.

  • This approach will give these criteria the “weight” of a statutory plan.

• Directing aggregate extraction away from comprehensively planned country residential communities and from environmentally sensitive areas

• Creating performance measures and application requirements in a non-statutory planning document

• Establishing an aggregate site monitoring bylaw to facilitate proactive monitoring of gravel operations

• Creating a standard aggregate land use district in the Land Use Bylaw

Once the Committee submits its final report, Administration will draft the policies – some of which will be incorporated into the revision of the County Plan that is being undertaken at the same time, others will be in stand-alone policy documents and bylaws.  Admin will also undertake public engagement, as recommended by the Committee.  The objective is to have all this completed and approved by early 2025.

2023 Budget finalized with 3% property tax rate increase

Council gave preliminary approval to the 2023 budget in December.  Now that the  province has set the amounts to be collected for education taxes and the County has completed its update of the assessment base, Council gave the budget its final approval.

Last December, Administration estimated that a 6% increase in property tax rates would be required to fund the County’s 2023 operations and capital investments.  However, the growth in the County’s assessment base, particularly from new non-residential construction, was significantly greater than anticipated.  This left Council with the flexibility to maintain fiscal responsibility while imposing a smaller tax increase.

As Mayor Kissel pointed out, given the financial pressures currently faced by residents, it didn’t make sense to take more money out of their bank accounts only to put it into the County’s bank account.  This was the view generally shared by council.  Councillor Hanson expressed reservations because he felt it was important to set aside funds so that council would have more flexibility to use the Tax Stabilization Reserve to finance new initiatives.  Councillor Samra indicated that he would have been more comfortable with a 4% increase, rather than the 3% increase.

Preliminary glimpse at revised Springbank ASP

Administration provided council with an update on its planned revisions to the Springbank ASP at the April 7^th Governance Committee meeting.  The full report from staff can be found here –  key points include:

• Amalgamating the North & South Springbank ASPs into one ASP

• Reducing the total area relative to the existing ASPs

• Reduction of the area set aside for cluster residential relative to the previous draft ASPs – renamed to open space residential and open space development, the latter of which is still proposed to include a live-work component

• Reduction of the area set aside for non-residential development relative to the previous draft ASPs

• Requiring County-led local plans for development in the community core along RR33, the Springbank Airport employment area and the cluster residential areas

• Setting aside some flood-prone and environmentally sensitive land for agricultural uses

There was a significant amount of discussion regarding the remaining cluster residential land use, with Councillor Kochan emphasizing that residents had already strongly indicated that this is not a development form supported by the existing community.  In contrast, Councillor Hanson insisted that the opposition was largely led by a small vocal minority and that if residents really understood cluster developments, they would not be opposed and would be willing to drop their preferences for outdated development forms.  This latter position was supported by Administration who are proposing to provide educational material that will more fully explain the cluster residential development form.

Administration made it clear that their cluster residential proposal was not consistent with the CMRB’s Regional Growth Plan, but they indicated that their approach was more sustainable than that permitted by the CMRB.  From our perspective, it is unclear why the County would risk another refusal for the Springbank ASP for a land use that residents do not appear to support.

The Governance Committee discussion made it clear that there is confusion, both for councillors and staff, regarding the Committee’s actual mandate.  As a result, although Councillor Kochan attempted to remove the cluster residential land uses from the revised draft, his efforts failed because of a general understanding that this level of direction exceeded the Committee’s mandate.

The RVC website still indicates that the timeframe for the Springbank ASP is to release the revised land-use scenarios to residents and stakeholders in the first or second quarter of 2023 and bring a revised ASP to a public hearing in the second or third quarter of 2023.  However, since we are now in the second quarter of 2023, it is not clear whether those timelines are still valid –a critical piece of information that was not discussed at the Governance Committee.

Amended Janet ASP opens up the long-term development area

When the Janet ASP was originally approved in ????, it set aside the land east of the Western Irrigation Canal for future development and stipulated that area could only be developed once the western portion of the ASP was substantially built out.  Now that xx% has been developed, a light industrial land use strategy was approved for the remainder of the ASP area.

Residents from the community within the long-term development area raised a number of concerns regarding potential impacts on their community. In response, council approved a number of amendments to provide the buffering of their community requested by the residents.

Approval of the 2023 Master Rates Bylaw

The Master Rates Bylaw establishes the fees charged for municipal services such as development applications, building permits, municipal water and wastewater, and garbage services.  These rates are viewed each year as part of the budget process. 

As we have noted in the past, the rates for municipally provided utility services have never covered all their costs.  A 10% increase in those rates, as well as for the rates changed for curbside garbage collection in Langdon, were included to move these services closer to full-cost recovery pricing. 

Consistent with the recently approved solid waste collection bylaw that identified Harmony and Pinebrook, as well as Langdon, as communities for which curbside garbage collection could be provided, Administration included rates for the anticipated addition of curbside collection in Harmony.  Councillor Wright questioned the inclusion of rates for Harmony garbage collection and suggested it was premature until Council approved an overall strategy for extending curbside garbage collection to any specific community.  This was unanimously supported.  Councillor Kochan then requested that Administration provide the Governance Committee with recommendations for a long-term utility rate strategy.  His motion was also unanimously supported.

Willow Park conceptual scheme & land use redesignation approved

In a 5 – 2 vote, council approved the concept scheme and land use redesignation for 40 acres at the southwest corner of RR33 and Twp Rd 243A to develop 12 2-acre parcels.  In September 2021, the previous council sent the Willow Park concept scheme back for further work because of substantial opposition from neighbouring communities about stormwater and overland drainage.  This followed Administration’s recommendation, which noted that the original proposal did not comply with the County Servicing Standards for stormwater management and biophysical impacts.

The developer made enough changes to the proposed development to satisfy Administration who recommended approval of the modified application.  The most significant changes included removing one of the proposed parcels for a total of 12 rather than 13, adding a stormwater pond and adding overland drainage ditches on the west and south sides of the development. 

Despite these modifications, neighbouring residents remain concerned about the potential flooding risks from adding this many new residences into an already flood-prone area.  In contrast, the developer asserted that the newly proposed stormwater pond and overland drainage ditches not only addressed stormwater issues on the Willow Park site; but would also improve overland drainage issues for the residents to the south.

Local Councillor Hanson clearly agreed with the developer and recommended approval since, in his view, the revised application could potentially fix the broader community’s water issues.  Councillors Kochan and Wright disagreed as the site has many permanent and ephemeral wetlands . They felt the existing residents’ concerns should be given greater weight and flooding was a problem in the area.  Kochan also stated that the necessary Alberta Environment approvals should be obtained before giving final redesignation approval.

Redesignation application in Bearspaw refused

An application to redesignate a 20-acre agricultural parcel in northwest Bearspaw to R-CRD which permits 2-acre parcels was refused unanimously, consistent with Administration’s recommendation. 

The parcel is in the Bearspaw ASP’s Priority 4 area, which is identified as “agricultural”.  As the staff report noted, since the ASP’s Priority Areas 1 – 3 are not fully built out, the ASP indicates that Priority 4 lands should not be considered for country residential development at this time.

The quarter section was subdivided into six parcels in 2006. At that time, the landowner chose a lot layout and installed infrastructure to support future residential development.  The applicant asserted that this underutilized infrastructure justified relaxing the ASP’s development priority policies to permit the current owner to redesignate his property to R-CRD without a concept scheme.

When asked by council why the quarter section had not just been redesignated to a residential land use district back in 2006, both the applicant and the one speaker in support of the application indicated that it had been clear in 2006 that an application for 2- or 4-acre parcels would not have been approved, so the landowner went with the smaller agricultural land use zoning.  The applicant could not point to any changed circumstances.  As a result, their response provided council with easy justification for refusing the application.