Municipal Development Plan - Online Survey

If you haven’t attended one of the MDP open houses, there is one remaining open house at the County Hall (262075 Rocky View Point, Balzac) on Thursday, June 27^th from 3:00 – 8:00 p.m.  There is also an online survey that covers the questions raised at the open houses.

Even for those of you who attended one of the open houses, the online survey is useful for providing input.  There were a lot of important questions raised at the open houses and the survey offers an opportunity to submit responses that might not have fitted easily onto post-it notes.

You can access the survey here.  The survey has multiple pages that correspond to the poster boards at the open houses.   On the survey pages for agriculture and county-wide policies, there are follow-up sub-pages, so be sure to scroll down to the end of those pages to access the additional topics. 

Not all the topics will be of interest to everyone, but we encourage you to be sure to express your views on the issues that are relevant for you.  The survey is open through the summer, so there is no need to complete the entire survey in one sitting.  As a note, for many questions you can provide comments if you answer “yes”, but not if you answer “no”.

The survey covers the following topics:

• Distinct area profiles for residential, business and agricultural areas

  • Select a distinct area, answer the questions and then repeat for as many of the distinct areas as you wish.

• Policy issues in agricultural areas

  • First parcels out and other agricultural subdivisions

  • Defining rural and country residential lifestyles

  • Agri-business and agri-tourism land uses and whether they should be co-located into “hubs

  • Mixed use commercial/residential “hubs” focused on agricultural uses or home-based businesses

  • Tourism and hospitality “hubs”

• Other county-wide policies

  • Vacation rentals

  • Institutional and community uses

  • Renewable energy

  • Pathways & trails

It is important to review the descriptions for the distinct area profiles that are relevant for you.  Staff have indicated that these may be used to develop differentiated policies for distinct areas.  So, if a distinct area profile includes features that you don’t believe should be there or is missing features that should be there, it is important to provide that feedback.

Some of the topics under “agricultural policies” are relevant for a wider audience – so everyone should check these out.  For example, whether and how rural and country residential lifestyles should be defined.  Residents continually indicate that they want to preserve these lifestyles, but what is meant by each is less clear.  The survey lists possible defining characteristics for each.  Look at these carefully and comment as you see fit – it is important to define our lifestyles accurately.

As well, whether alternative land uses in agricultural areas should be grouped into “hubs” or permitted as isolated parcels.  This choice could significantly impact what Rocky View looks like in the future.  This is especially true for what are being called “rural hubs”.  These would be mixed-use developments with up to 80 residential parcels and either agriculturally focused businesses or home-based businesses.

We struggle to identify the logic behind these proposals and question how they can be made consistent with the Regional Growth Plan that limits country residential housing to 2-acre parcels (or the equivalent when clustered with open space) or that constrains the creation of new rural employment areas.  Also, it is not clear what residents would gain by co-locating the “butcher, baker, and candlestick maker” along with their more modern-day home business equivalents – the accountant, the cabinetmaker, or the yoga instructor.  And, why should individuals who want a home-based business not be able to conduct those businesses from wherever they want to live in the County?