RVC Council Update - March Meetings

Council’s two meetings in March had packed agendas with many important decisions.  These included:

• Fast-tracking proposals to consider massive data centres in east Rocky View

• Funding 50% of the Cochrane Lake Improvement Plan, despite Administration recommending only a 25% funding contribution

• Contradicting their commitment to transparency and accountability by refusing to reinstate recorded votes

• Increasing county-owned utility rates to full cost recovery over the next three years

• Giving the Springbank ASP 3^rd reading with a parting snub to Calgary

Are Mega Data Centres Coming to Rocky View?

At its March 4^th meeting, council approved motions to fast-track two proposals to co-locate natural gas-powered electrical generation alongside large-scale data centres on the east side of Rocky View.  Council also directed Administration to return by the end of April to report on emerging data centre opportunities. 

These proposals are in addition to the proposed Beacon Hill data centre in south-east Rocky View that would be powered by a solar farm.  Council approved terms of reference for its ASP late last year. 

While these proposals offer potential economic benefits for the County, they each require vast tracts of agricultural land, all outside existing ASPs.  As a result, we believe that their locations need to be carefully evaluated to ensure they do not conflict with the County’s objective of protecting its agricultural land and operations.

County to Fund 50% of the Cochrane Lake Improvement Plan

Resolving Cochrane Lake’s flooding and water quality issues has been an ongoing impediment to development in that area.  Developers who own land on the south and west sides of Cochrane Lake have lobbied for a shared county-developer solution to address these longstanding issues.

Earlier this year, council approved construction of a berm to protect existing homes, with infrastructure upgrades to improve water quality so that the Lake’s water level can be increased along with its discharge to Horse Creek.  Administration was directed to work with the developers on a cost-sharing agreement for the necessary work which is estimated to cost $5.1 million.

On March 4^th, Administration presented two alternatives:

• The County’s cost-sharing recommendation – a 25% / 75% split; and

• The developers’ recommendation – a 50% / 50% split. 

Administration described the project primarily as a stormwater solution with existing homes representing roughly 25% of the acreage expected to be developed in the near term.  The County acknowledged that, since the developers of the existing homes had not paid into a stormwater solution, the County should cover that share of the costs.

In contrast, the developers argued for a 50 / 50 split because of the “major benefits” it would provide to the County – a stormwater solution for the entire Cochrane North ASP; resolving ongoing flooding concerns in the existing community; additional customers for the county-owned water and wastewater utilities; and the transformation of Cochrane Lake into a regional recreation amenity.   

As rationale for supporting the developers’ recommendation, Reeve Kissel, Deputy Reeve Kochan and Councillor Schule all emphasized that the existing community accounted for about half of Cochrane Lake’s shoreline.  Kissel also felt that encouraging new development would make it easier to move to full-cost recovery utility rates without dramatic increases for the existing community. She followed this up by saying if the county didn’t cover 50% of the costs, it might as well rescind the ASP since no new development would happen.

In contrast, Councillor Hanson stated that, if upgrading Cochrane Lake was going to be as attractive a community amenity as his colleagues and the developers believed, then Administration’s 25% / 75% split made more sense. As Hanson pointed out, the developers will incorporate whatever costs they incur into their housing prices, they won’t be borne directly by the developers or taxpayers. 

We are highly skeptical about the developers’ threats to walk away from their longstanding investments and substantial future profits over an additional $1.5 million cost (the selling price for one or two of the hundreds of homes they plan to build). However, the council majority (Kissel, Kochan, Boehlke, and Schule) supported the developers’ 50/50 recommendation.  As a result, the extra $1.5 million will now be borne by all county taxpayers. From our perspective it seems hypocritical to be willing to subsidize developers on this issue but not to be willing to subsidize residents’ utility rates.

Council Majority Defeats Proposal to Reinstate Recorded Votes

To provide enhanced transparency and accountability, Councillors Samra and Wright brought forward a Notice of Motion to reinstate recorded votes for council decisions.  Unfortunately, the council majority (Kissel, Kochan, Boehlke, and Schule) defeated the initiative. Given their loudly touted commitment to accountability and transparency, the question is why?

Currently, councillors raise their hand either in support or opposition. For someone watching the livestream of council meetings, it is frequently difficult to see how councillors vote.  For anyone else, there is zero information.  Without recorded votes, it is extremely difficult for residents to know where their councillor stands on issues that are important to them. 

Schule insisted that recorded votes “failed” when they were tried before.  Having watched council meetings both with and without recorded votes, we beg to differ. 

Despite supporting the initiative under the last council, this time Kissel used the possibility that recorded votes might be done electronically as her “reason” to not support greater accountability. She stated that the electronic voting used by Calgary’s council was too cumbersome.  Quite frankly, we fail to understand how that applies to the basic question of whether council’s decisions should be documented by recorded votes.  After all, how long does it take for 7 people to say either “support” or “oppose”?

Continued Chaos on Utility Rates

As many of you are aware, council has taken numerous steps to obtain information on how best to move the rates for county-owned water and wastewater utilities to levels that will fully cover their costs.  While we support this at a general level, the route they have taken raises many questions.

Despite Administration’s recommendation last November to increase rates as part of the update to the Master Rates Bylaw, council initially supported Kochan’s motion to freeze rates – only to then support Kochan’s motion at the next meeting for a 3% increase (even though Administration indicated that utility-specific costs had increased by 5%). 

Again, following Kochan’s lead, the council majority hired a sole source consultant to assist in selecting an accounting firm to provide information that Administration said they could provide. 

At the March 4^th meeting, Administration presented two options for moving utility rates to full cost recovery over the next three years –a rate that would have all county-owned utility users paying the same rate (blended rate), or stand-alone rates for each county-owned utility (individual rates). 

It was clear from council’s discussion that many were still confused about the options.  Initially, it sounded like they would refer the issue back to Administration for more information.  However, after more discussion Hanson proposed accepting Administration’s blend rate recommendation.  This was defeated by Kochan, Schule, Boehlke and Samra.  The same four then approved a motion to increase the individual rates for each utility so that each will fully recover its own costs within the next three years.  For Bragg Creek residents this will result in annual rate increases of 66% for their water and wastewater utilities and 61% for residents in Cochrane Lake.  Utility users in east Rocky View will face much smaller increases, after they benefited from decades of tax subsidization for their rates while their user base slowly expanded.

The chaos associated with this issue culminated at the March 25^th meeting when the agenda included an item to rescind council’s March 4^th decision.  Council went into closed session to discuss the issue.  Upon returning, the council majority (Kissel, Kochan, Boehlke, and Schule) again hired the same sole source consultant to advise them on their proposed utility rate strategy. 

It is incomprehensible why this discussion was held behind closed doors when all the utility rate information is publicly available.  We also find it highly questionable that the council majority continually turns to an outside consultant for advice that Administration is more than capable of providing. Council has been through three CAOs since this fiasco started.  At what point will they realize that the problem may not be Administration?

Springbank ASP Finally Reaches the Finish Line, But Not Without Some Bumps

When Council gave the Springbank Area Structure Plan 1^st and 2^nd reading in December, they directed Administration to circulate the amended ASP to Calgary for its review and to report back to Council. Calgary requested some minor amendments.

At Council’s March 25^th meeting, before Council considered staff’s report on those amendments, the Chief of the Bearspaw Nation made a request to speak to Council.  It is not clear what harm could have come from listening to what he had to say.  Council can always do what it wants with any information it receives.  However, the council majority (Kissel, Kochan, Boehlke & Schule) refused to allow him to address council.  Kissel emphasized that granting such requests was not something council did.  From our observations, council does sometimes allow people to speak on issues that are not public hearings.  Furthermore, Council’s Procedure Bylaw allows members of the public to request to address council on such agenda items.

Calgary’s amendments to the ASP focused on ensuring that there was meaningful intermunicipal consultation on significant land use decisions and addressing their continued concerns about source water protection.

Kochan, along with Kissel, Boehlke and Schule, refused all but one of these amendments as undue interference in Rocky View’s affairs, even though Administration advised that Calgary granted the County a similar request regarding consultation in its recent West View ASP on its border with Springbank.

We fail to understand how refusing these simple requests from Calgary is consistent with council’s February 18^th resolution which committed Rocky View to “demonstrate leadership on a regional approach involving neighbouring municipalities to ensure that growth in the Calgary region is respectful of collective regional success”. This commitment was made for a long list of issues including regional servicing, source water protection, and land use planning. 

While the revised Springbank ASP is a major improvement relative to earlier drafts, the road to get there involved its fair share of bumps. That said, we are happy to report that the ASP received unanimous 3^rd reading.