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I’ve reported here before on the http://www.canadianguerilla.com website run by Al Secuta. Secuta’s blog follows developments in Bearspaw. The MD of Rocky View is adding urban density consistent with the Calgary Regional Plan and calling it their “Growth Management Strategy.” The plan calls for 5000 people and a business corridor to Bearspaw. Al and others are rallying in protest. He says that they are breaking their own rules and allowing “dodgy” developments in the middle of rural areas that are urban in density but don’t have typical urban infrastructure such as water and sewer service. The developers will be providing septic systems that treat large volumes of sewage and release the sewage back into the ground.
This is perhaps a precursor to what will happen in the MD of Foothills with the designation of “blue blobs” if the MD doesn’t get its requested changes to the governance model discussed a the open houses recently.
My observation is that the CRP is just a cleverly disguised continuation of the urban sprawl it claims to combat — but instead of creating ugly suburbs within the city limits, they’ve pushed them just beyond the city limits into the neighbouring rural municipalities. I’ve looked at the Calgary Plan It materials and nowhere do they mention the blue blobs — hence they can claim they are accommodating growth within existing boundaries. The city folk are unaware of the dense nodes being created just outside their boundaries and won’t realize it until the commuter traffic becomes even more intolerable (because the money won’t actually come through for transit until long after the homes have already been built — if the money comes through at all). Then, they will take a look outside the city boundaries and be shocked to discover they’ve been “had.
See the Bearspaw Development News for background.
I read with interest the agenda for tomorrow’s Okotoks Town Council meeting. The Okotoks and District Chamber of Commerce President Cathy Huth “will be in attendance to provide information to Council on the results of the
Chamber’s recent survey to its membership regarding the Town’s population cap.”
The package includes a copy of the survey which reads like this:
“Dear Chamber Member,
The Okotoks and District Chamber of Commerce is seeking feedback
from its members regarding the proposed Calgary Regional Land Use
Plan and how it might affect Okotoks in the future.
It is our mandate to be aware of changing government policies and
to bring them to the business community for your feed back so
that you have a voice in the decision making of this region.
The Calgary Regional Partnership is a volunteer group of 17
municipalities and 1 First Nation who have come together in the
spirit of cooperation to plan for a sustainable future. Together
they have been collaborating on common regional issues. (To read
more about the CRP please go to http://www.calgaryregion.ca/crp/).
This region includes as far North as Crossfield – East to
Wheatland County – West to Banff and South to Nanton.
It is estimated that around 1.75 million new people will join the
already 1.1 million residents who live in our region over the
next 50-75 years. It is our responsibility to plan now for
future generations.
The regional plan looks at the following questions:
Where will everyone live?
Where will they work?
How will this growth impact the environment?
The economy?
The infrastructure?
Our quality of life?
How can we ensure we grow in a way that reflects our regions
values?
Okotoks implemented a growth model in 1998 that limited its
population to 30,000 people. With the new Regional Land Use
Plan, Okotoks would be required to absorb some of the speculated
population increase. Mayor and Council are currently reviewing
that 1998 population cap.
You as a business person could provide us with important input
that we could then relay to our local government.
Please indicate below:
Providing that water sources are available, I support removing
the population cap and expanding our boarders while continuing to
practice sustainable development.
I would prefer that we stay with the plan initiated in 1998
maintaining a population cap of 30,000 people.
Comments:
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
Please forward your response to the Chamber Office by fax
403) 938-6649 or email okotokschamber@telus.net no later than
Monday, March 30th. Responses will be compiled and forwarded to
the Town Council.
Also, for Town residents, please watch for a Census/Survey pack
coming out the first week of April. It is important that you
respond to that survey as well.
Cathy Huth,
President”
I find the wording of the survey quite interesting. The first choice says, “Providing that water sources are available…” It is clear that there is no certainty at all that water sources are available. So far, all that has been looked at is water LICENSES. And those licenses are notoriously out of date and don’t take the effects of climate change into consideration. They also require Calgarians to substantially decrease their water consumption–all to make more water available to we folks out in Okotoks who are thirsty…
Secondly the wording goes on to say, “…I support removing the population cap and expanding our boarders (sic) while continuing to practice sustainable development.” Well, everything apparently constitutes sustainable development these days, including removing a population cap that is based on water supply and expanding our footprint to include more land and take over neighbouring properties!!
This is akin to saying “I support removing the limits on the amount of household garbage that people put out and expanding the size of the landfill while continuing to practice waste reduction.” Will the political doublespeak never end?
Let’s call a spade a spade for a change…unlimited growth and expanding borders to accommodate that growth can not be considered “sustainable” under any possible definition of the word! The definition of sustainability at its most basic is, “capable of being continued with minimal long-term effect on the environment.” There is only so much water and so much land to accommodate everyone.
If you can attend the presentation tomorrow and voice your concerns, please do so and report back. Thanks.
I received the following email from Al Secuta, who blogs and comments on development news in Bearspaw. He has submitted a comprehensive report on the impact of the Calgary Regional Partnership on his community. The Rocky View Weekly newspaper has written a story about his campaign against the CRP (reproduced below, also):
Jody:
Most people don’t seem to understand that Calgary has a veto, or how detrimental such a veto could be. If it’s OK with you, I would like to provide in my next e-newsletter a link to your site.
Feel free to distribute my report to whomever you wish or to post it on your site.
I have submitted the report to the CRP, my e-newsletter list, the Rocky View Weekly, the Cochrane Times, and the Springbank Community Planning Association.
In last week’s issue, the Rocky View Weekly ran a story on the report.
Regards,
Al
al@canadianguerilla.com
Resident advocates for low-growth alternative
Enrique Massot
Southern Alberta simply does not have enough water to support the growth laid out in the Calgary Regional Partnership’s (CRP) new regional landuse plan, said MD of Rocky View resident and engineer Al Sacuta.
The CRP’s plan calls for the region’s population to balloon to 2.8 million over the next 60-to-70 years. It doesn’t make sense, said Sacuta, a Bearspaw resident.
“When you are talking about putting 1.6 million more people here, you have to ask why,” he said.
In a 37-page position paper titled Reckless Growth: The Calgary Regional Plan, Sacuta argues two million people would suck dry both the Bow and Elbow rivers.
“Even two million people is going to be too much,” he said. “What are you going to do if you put 2.8 million?”
The paper also disputes the notion that growth is necessary to achieve wealth and high standards of living.
He notes Norway, with 0.62 per cent growth, has the largest gross domestic product per capita among nine developed countries. Canada, in spite of having a growth of 0.90 per cent, comes ninth on that list. Sweden, meanwhile, achieved fourth position.
“Sweden has great standards of living,” Sacuta said. “They have a good life.”
Sacuta advocated allowing slower growth within urban boundaries, allowing Calgary and surrounding municipalities to create a wide green belt around the city. Such a belt, protected from development pressures, could include farms and other agricultural ventures such as vegetable gardens and green houses producing food for the local market. Local food production would be an asset when fossil fuels eventually dry up, increasing the costs of transporting food from far away places.
“The ability to grow food around the cities will be a real benefit,” Sacuta said.
Sacuta added the development industry can adapt itself to low rates of growth by doing business in a different way.
“They will have to figure out how to build self-sustaining subdivisions,” he said. “They are creative and can do that.”
On the other hand, Sacuta said, “We cannot imperil our society to keep developers in business.”
In the April 15, 2009 issue of the Western Wheel, Okotoks Town Councillor Stephen Clark repeated his defence of the Calgary Regional Partnership and his ongoing denial of the Calgary veto. To view the editorial which is a repeat of much of what Mr. Clark has already said on this website, visit the Western Wheel. In a spirited response to this editorial, Laurie Hodson has submitted the following letter to the Western Wheel, but has been told by the editor of the Western Wheel that the letter will likely NOT be run in the Wheel newspaper for various reasons. To give a voice to those of us who like to “call it like they see it,” we are reproducing the letter here:
Dear Editor,
With respect to Mr. Stephen Clark’s verbose defense of the Calgary Regional Plan in last week’s Western Wheel, it’s really very simple: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Factually, Calgary Regional Partnership majority decisions must include the clear support of at least 50% of the region’s population. The last time I checked that translates into a City of Calgary veto. Residents of Okotoks and the MD of Foothills who don’t approve of the veto would be well advised to let their Councilors, Minister Ted Morton, Minister George Groeneveld and the CRP know how they feel.
As for last week’s editorial effectively pushing for a water pipeline from Calgary; again, it’s clear: if water shortage is the problem the Town of Okotoks acknowledges it is, let’s address the two important questions: “Where’s the water to come from?” and “At what cost?” Semi-arid Southern Alberta has 80% of the population yet only 20% of the province’s water. No matter how many people we shoehorn into this district, future water is going be scarce: the more people, the less available water. Taking it from a dominant urban centre that, if not already water-stressed, eventually will be, doesn’t solve the problem, it only temporarily masks it.
The citizens of Okotoks are entirely correct in resisting a move away from their award-winning finite growth model. In the interim, it behooves us to stop listening to rhetoric, and in its stead, seek out the facts.
L. [Laurie] Hodson
The following letter to the editor appeared in the Western Wheel on April 8, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from Laurie Hodson:
Dear Editor:
I agree with writer Eben Fodor when he says, “Many of our local governments are on growth ‘autopilot.’” He goes on to say, “Citizens seeking responsiveness and accountability from their governments find that there doesn’t appear to be anyone at the controls.”
During the past years, Okotoks’ residents have consistently asked their Town Councillors to “stay the course” (ie “maintain the status quo”) and to advocate for restraint in terms of their community’s growth and southern Alberta’s severe water constraints. Okotoks residents now find themselves in the position of having to ask of this Council: “what part of your mandate to ‘stay the course’ did you not understand?”
Residents are now being asked to complete and return another community survey with the lead question being: Sustainable Okotoks – Where to from here?
A word of caution: do not be deterred by the term “status quo”. The first option, “maintain the status quo”, is our Town’s global award-winning growth model repeatedly endorsed by three quarters of Okotoks residents. Make no mistake; the “tweaked growth” option is a vote against the Sustainable Okotoks as we know it and for the CRP Calgary veto.
Compromise and we risk losing it all.
L. [Laurie] Hodson
Dear Mayor Bronconnier,
I was born in the Holy Cross hospital in 1954 (as was my father in 1920) and have watched Calgary evolve into what it currently is. My family and I left Calgary in 1997 to live on a 1/4 section near Black Diamond. We left, not because we disliked Calgary particularly but because we were attracted to the country life style and its relative independence.
I utterly reject this overbearing, unfair, undemocratic CRP. If I wanted that kind of government interference in life and my long range plans I’d move back into the city, which I plan never to do. There is NO BENEFIT to us rural people in this plan. NONE. Calgary would hold all the cards. It’s a non-starter as far as I’m concerned or virtually any person I’ve spoken to out here about it. What are you thinking?!
Yours Truly
Susan Raby-Dunne
Black Diamond
Beiseker’s mayor is warning his fellow small town leaders to be on guard against a possible wave of provincial government interference.
Bruce Rowe, who also serves as chair of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association’s (AUMA) Small Communities Committee, said the Province may dissolve a number of small towns, rolling them into larger municipalities.
“Sixty to 70 municipalities may be in trouble,” he said.
However, Rowe said his warning is based on rumour at this point. He has not received any definitive answers on the issue from Ray Danyluk, minister of Municipal Affairs, and a spokesperson with the department could not confirm or deny such a provincial initiative last week.
“We do not know what is fact and what is not,” said Rowe. “The rumours are there.”
After unofficially learning the provincial government may be preparing changes to the way small municipalities are governed, the AUMA launched a survey to poll its members’ opinions on eventual changes. The survey requested municipal representatives provide an opinion on the merger of municipalities into regional governance authorities, with the goal of achieving economies of scale.
“Out of 300 municipalities, there were 250 responses,” said Rowe. “Never has AUMA got such a response before.”
It is not known which communities are being looked at by the Province, but it is unlikely the move will impact communities in the Foothills region.
Verna Staples, administrative assistant for the Town of Black Diamond, said the proposal does not have a direct impact on Black Diamond.
“I understand it does not include larger towns, but towns that are not self-sustainable,” said Staples. “I don’t know which towns, but small communities like summer villages.”
Dissolution is nothing new in the Foothills area as the hamlets of Blackie and Cayley were formerly villages that dissolved and became hamlets within the MD of Foothills. Blackie and Cayley dissolved willingly.
Staples also said this latest possible move by the Province is also not mandatory as she understands.
“It is not something that is being forced on people,” she said.
The issue will come up for debate at the AUMA President’s Summit, to take place in Red Deer on April 30 and May 1. The Summit will focus on the future of local governance in Alberta, as well as issues affecting local governance.
“It is a big ticket item,” said Rowe.
Read the article online.
emassot@airdrie.greatwest.ca
Received this email today from Ian and Vicky Holmes who live in the MD of Foothills:
“Calgary says it has the water, well we have the land. Can Calgary prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they have the water to sustain the anticipated growth for the entire area? Is it necessary for Calgary and area to grow so fast?
The 17 CRP members should be working together in the interest of all residents of the Cities, Towns, MD’s, and Calgary should not be trying to place their wishes ahead of all the other communities. Sixteen of the 17 CRP members can agree to something but Calgary can be the only one to say no and they win. This is wrong.
We support our council in their fight to keep control of the MD of Foothills. They are elected members who are looking after the best interested of the MD residents. The CRP is neither elected by or accountable to MD residents.
The CRP have an unrestricted mandate to later amend the draft plan. It could be amended in ways which may significantly and adversely affect MD residents against their wishes and those of Council. This is wrong.
Each municipality must remain responsible for the ecological land use decisions such as water setbacks, wildlife corridors, etc. in its own jurisdiction, in accord with provincial legislation and being responsive to MD residents. What do Calgary city dwellers understand about rural life? We moved to the MD to get away from the city and the city ideas.
Before the Calgary 60 year growth areas in the MD Foothills are finalized, affected MD residents must have the opportunity to be fully advised, to understand the impact and to provide their input. What exactly are the areas in the Blue Blobs? Would MD residents be advised of the intend to freeze their land and exactly what that would mean? Would they have any say in this?
Amendments must have a unanimous vote if the CRP wishes to take over any land use authority from a municipality.
We are supportive of much of the CRP Draft Plan and its policies. However, we have 3 serious concerns with the Draft Plan as stated above.”
MYTH 1: “Growth is inevitable and can’t be stopped.”
FACT: Growth is not inevitable although it is often promoted as such to the public by those who have vested, short-term interests.
MYTH 2: “You can’t throw up fences around a town or region.”
FACT: Regions, cities, and countries, worldwide, have established limits to growth, but this only happens when citizens demand it. Policies and tax incentives influence whether growth takes place or whether it takes the more reasonable path of slow and careful growth.
Myth 3: “Growth will be larger around the edges of a town if the population is capped. The residents of the town pay more taxes to support this non-taxpaying group using town services”
FACT: There will be growth pressures around the edges of any town or city — population cap or not. Elected officials need to work together cooperatively on development in boundary areas to prevent conflicts. One community should NOT be allowed to impose its will on another. Also, cities and towns sometimes charge user fees to non-residents to help pay for widely used recreational and public services (ie. public library fees for non-residents).
MYTH 4: “Growth provides needed tax revenues.”
FACT: Growth often raises local tax rates and puts heavy demands on local resources, shifting money away from important public services. In the long run, growth’s consequences – density, crime, traffic, high housing prices and taxes – outweigh growth’s short-term fiscal benefits.
MYTH 5: “Environmental protection hurts the economy.”
FACT: Regions with strong environmental policies consistently outperform areas with weaker regulations. “Quality of life” is vastly improved.
MYTH 6: “Growth is the only path to prosperity. “
FACT: Growth beyond resource capacity — as in semi-arid desert Alberta with its limited water – will stress the region over time. In this case, growth can be compared to the ideology of the cancer cell – a life form stretching beyond its natural capacity.
MYTH 7: “Growth can continue as long as human beings want it to.”
FACT: There are limits to growth as determined by resource availability — including energy, arable land, and water. Alberta is not immune to risks of overdevelopment.
Source: Dr. Nancy Ginzer, Citizens for a Sustainable Okotoks
This is the latest from Mayor Bill McAlpine in response to an email from an Okotoks citizen:
“Good morning:
The following is the decision making process as discussed by thepartnership.
1 – Decisions to be by consensus, but with capacity to makebinding decisions
2 – Calgary CANNOT impose its will on the region, but neithercan regional decisions be made without Calgary’s support
This is called a super majority.
To pass a decision you must have 2/3 of CRP members (12 of 17)
Plus 50% of the population.
I think this is were the misconception comes in because Calgaryhas more than 80% of the population.
In any event this will only be used on truly REGIONAL decisionsnot for the day to day workings of a community or negotiations between two neighbors.
Hope this helps, this is only a down and dirty explanation wehave much more info. In our by-laws if you wish.
Respectfully
Bill McAlpine
Mayor
Town of OKOTOKS”
Does the mayor believe that if Calgary can vote against something on the basis of their 80% population base, this is NOT a veto? He says the Calgary veto is a “misconception” which according to dictionary.com means “an erroneous conception; mistaken notion.” There is no misconception here, Mr. Mayor — Calgary can VETO something even if every other member of the partnership wants to go ahead with it! No other member of the Calgary Regional Partnership enjoys this privilege.
Here was the original message from an Okotoks resident that the Mayor was responding to:
“As a citizen of Okotoks, I would like to make it clear that I don’t support the acceptance of the Calgary Regional Partnership if it means that Calgary will have veto power. Decision by consensus would be a much better model. With an agreement that will last 60 years, I feel this partnership has not been adequately explained to the people of Okotoks and has been rushed through without proper consultation with the community. We moved to Okotoks to get out of the City of Calgary 9 years ago, and while I agree there needs to be a plan for future growth, I feel that participating in a partnership where Calgary voters can “trump” Okotoks voters is undemocratic. I hope that you will address these concerns in your future dealings with the CRP issue.”
Please note: I am now trying to get a copy of the CRP by-laws so that I can confirm what the mayor has said regarding the limits on the veto–certainly, this seems to contradict what has been presented to MD of Foothills residents at their open houses.
Just say NO! to a Calgary VETO 