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If you think what’s happening with the Calgary Regional Partnership is alarming, just wait until Bill 36, the Alberta Land Stewardship Act is enacted. The following article appeared on Liberal MLA Kent Hehr’s website and even though he is in opposition, the many people quoted in the story are raising alarm bells–from industrial associations, to environmental lawyers, to ranchers. Here is the story in its entirety (link at bottom of story):
“Critics say a landmark bill aimed at creating more orderly development in the province gives the Conservative government unchecked power over land use issues.
They say Bill 36 — the Alberta Land Stewardship Act — gives the government unprecedented powers to extinguish land and mineral rights without compensation while specifically prohibiting court appeals.
“It’s quite a scary bill,” said Laurie Danielson, executive director of an Edmonton-area industrial group called the Northeast Capital Industrial Association.
“I have never seen a bill anywhere in the country that gives a government as much authority. This bill allows the government to decide whether you exist. It can wipe you out in a heartbeat.”
Gavin Fitch, who specializes in energy and environment law, is alarmed the bill gives cabinet “complete and unfettered discretion” to plan development.
While the bill calls for creation of regional advisory committees to oversee development, there’s no requirement for cabinet to establish the committees or to follow their advice, he said.
Fitch said prohibiting appeals to the court “is just wrong.”
Sustainable Resource Development minister Ted Morton concedes the bill, which is being debated in the legislature today, gives cabinet “a lot of administrative discretion.”
“There is no off-the shelf blueprint from any other jurisdiction that has done this before, so we need that kind of flexibility,” he said. “We don’t want environmental and land use policy getting run through litigation in the courts. We want political accountability — not judge-made law.”
Morton said appeals will be allowed, if they were already permitted under previous legislation.
The Environmental Law Centre has called the bill “a positive step,” but said it requires critical amendments to deal with overly broad discretion and limited rights to appeal.
Centre director Cindy Chiasson said she is not optimistic the government will introduce an amendment to open the process up to judicial review, but that’s what’s missing.
Liberal critic Kent Hehr said the process has turned into a “power grab by cabinet.”
Although the bill establishes a stewardship commissioner to investigate complaints and apply to the courts to review specific matters, critics say its unlikely a commissioner employed by the government will take the government to court.
“The original land-use framework document emphasized the values of accountability, shared responsibility and transparency, but those values seem to have gone missing from the final product,” said NDP MLA Rachel Notley.
“If government wants Albertans to trust what they are doing, the minister needs to understand that changes of this magnitude require uncommon levels of respect for democratic accountability and transparency.”
She called on Morton to make the commissioner “an officer of the legislature” or to send the bill to an all-party committee for review, but he rejected the suggestions.
Alberta Chamber of Resources president Tim Ryan said the association of industry giants he represents has expressed concerns to government and hopes it was listening.
“If, in the end, there’s a decision we can’t accept, I guess we’ll see them at the election polls,” he said.
Dave Yager, CEO of HSE Integrated Services, said the bill appears to be a further erosion of the rights to access resources that oil and gas companies buy from the Crown.
“Everybody I show it to in the industry just turns white,” he said.
“For someone who depends on the oil industry, this is not a positive signal.”
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and the Alberta Forest Products Association expressed concerns about the bill, but hope to have input into the regulations that will drive the legislation.
The Alberta Urban Municipalities Association and Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties also had issues with the bill, but seemed resigned to accept it.
Rancher Norm Ward said beef producers are concerned the bill could curtail their use of land to graze cattle if it’s required for ecological or recreational uses.”
The County of Wheatland reportedly tried to duck the whole Calgary Regional Partnership early in the process. The story goes that they received a visit from a Cabinet Minister and were back at the table.
Their concerns are in the areas of governance (the Calgary veto again) and Land Use.
They preface their comments by stating that the Terms of Agreement for Working Together signed at the beginning of the Calgary Regional Partnership, need to be respected. They also mention that the rural municipalities have the land base while the City of Calgary has the population base. They suggest a similar voting structure as the MD of Foothills and the MD of Rocky View. They also promote the idea that “the receiving municipality that is affected by a regional issue must be in favour of any action.”
Under the Land Use section, the County says, “it appears that servicing is being used as a control too. For example, water is a provincial resource and the CMP is tying this to population density.”
The Calgary Metropolitan Plan currently states that “It should not be possible, therefore, for communities to cherry pick, to opt into or out of individual components of the CMP.” (Okotoks residents take note, there is no option for the Town to select anything but the urban density as determined by the CRP–in other words, even the moderate growth scenario is not guaranteed to be allowed under the provisions of the Calgary Metropolitan Plan. It is fairly certain that the full-growth is the only option should Okotoks sign on to the CMP.) The County of Wheatland is recommending that this statement be removed completely. A stroke of common sense that seems to have eluded Okotoks Town Council.
They also recommend taking more time for public review and comments, especially since further changes could be made as the Land Use Framework is rolled out.
The MD of Foothills did not really surprise anyone by submitting a lengthy document (12 pages) with many revisions proposed to the Calgary Metropolitan Plan. In summary, the concerns are:
1. The process for defining the blue blobs (just about everyone has struck these two words from their vocabulary on instruction from the CRP language nazis–apparently, they were just too catchy and everyone has picked up on them!)
2. Plan amendments which might later affect municipal autonomy.
3. Municipal autonomy.
And a few others that are mentioned in the document later.
Finally, the document states that “Foothills believes that ratification on June 19th cannot be achieved as there is too much work yet to be done on the proposed documents.”
A few highlights from the document:
-Foothills also has difficulty with policies 1.8 and 1.9 (as did Rocky View).
-They suggest a unanimous vote be required if a proposed amendment at some point in the future were to change either CRP or member authority.
-Foothills would like to see a clear statement of when the super-majority vote can be applied. Their fear is that what some consider “wordsmithing” may actually lead to the Calgary veto being applied in more instances than it was intended due to lack of clarity.
-There are also concerns from the MD over the process of rewriting that precludes elected councillors from having sufficient time to review the final version before June 19, when they will be asked to ratify it.
-Finally, in reference to the Calgary veto, the MD has the following comment:
“Rural members…represent well over 90% of the lands in the region but now recognition of this importance is afforded the rural member(s) in the present voting structure – rural members are heavily out-voted by the urban members…”
-The MD goes on to suggest a third tier of vote whereby the vote must contain the suport of two thirds of the rurals. My understanding is that this is not a new idea and has been suggested previously, but was rejected.
In a lengthy 12 page report, the MD of Rocky View says “we wish to advise that if the key issues outlined below go unresolved, we will be unable to ratify the CMP.”
The issues are:
1. Annexation/Juridiction: They want to remove two policies (1.8 and 1.9) which they say threaten the autonomy of individual jurisdictions.
2. Public Consultation: Postpone ratification of the CMP to allow more time for public consultation as presented to the steering committee by staff back in April of 2009.
3. Terms of Agreement for Working Together: These were the original rules agreed to back in May of 2007. The MD argues that the plan only promotes urban development, not diverse communities. This was a common theme brought up my rural citizens attending the open houses in the MD of Foothills as well.
4. Voting Structure: They are recommending a voting structure based on incorporation type–they have effectively given the thumbs down to the Calgary veto.
5. Water Allocation: The MD is calling for “details of water allocation method to be included in the regional servicing portion of the CMP prior to plan adoption.” The MD artues that the plan currently provides no certainty that partners will have access to water!
Okotoks Mayor Bill McAlpine must have been squirming a little bit when he signed the Town’s letter to Mayor Linda Bruce. He claims that Okotoks facilitated “extensive community consultation over the past few months.” There were two open houses in March and at each open house the Mayor and several Town Councillors read statements at the end expressing their own arguments in favour of the full growth scenario (60-100,000 people, depending on your source). It was clear that the Town Council was not CONSULTING with residents as much as they were attempting to PERSUADE them of letting go of the Sustainable Okotoks policy. It’s a good thing that the Okotoks community survey was pre-planned and went ahead despite the Town’s nervousness about the number of residents who were against the full growth scenario and the Calgary veto. When the results came back with only 16 percent in favour of the CMP’s full-growth scenario, it must have been a bad day around the boardroom table for Town Council.
But I digress, the letter then goes on to say, “With this (the survey results) in mind, Okotoks’ Council has determined that a population increase, characterized by the moderate growth strategy, may be considered over the next two years only if solutions are developed to enable the community to continue to support living within the natural carrying capacity of our watershed.” This is a slightly different spin than what was agreed to at Town Council on May 25, in front of a nearly full public gallery. There is no mention of maintaining the status quo Sustainable Okotoks policy, a glaring omission given the emotional drama that was played out in Council Chambers.
The letter also asks for the current partnership decision-making process during the next two years–in other words–no Calgary veto. This likely will not sit well with the City of Calgary and is ultimately just a short delay in what looks like an acceptance of the Calgary veto over the next 58 years.
Finally, the submission includes a revision to the blue blobs, outlining the areas where development should be allowed to occur outside the Town’s boundaries…areas to the northeast, the west and the south central/west. The submission includes about a dozen pages of background info about the community survey but does specifically identify which clauses and section of the CMP should be revised. It’s not surprising that CRP head honcho Linda Bruce is annoyed at the extent of the changes–the Town could have at least singled out specific areas of the plan needing amendment to make it easier.
Please note: Unfortunately, the Town seems to have trouble compressing its files for easy download. Every other municipality seems to understand that large files are difficult to download but Okotoks…Their 17 page document is an unwieldy 3 MB. I will compress the file size and post shortly. This has been an ongoing issue with both the Town of Okotoks and the Calgary Regional Partnership and despite my continued requests to make their files more accessible to the average citizen, they have thus far not been willing to make that effort. They need some IT assistance, clearly or just don’t care to try and make these things easy to download and open.
The City of Calgary submitted its agreement to sign on to the Calgary Metropolitan Plan and is quick to point out that the province has brought in the overarching legislation (the Land Stewardship Act, I presume, to support its Land Use Framework. “We believe the province is anticipating a timely ratification of the proposed CMP,” says Mayor Dave Bronconnier. Sounds like a bit of threat, doesn’t it?
Bronconnier goes on to say that, “I have…made it clear to the Steering Committee and the Executive that it is the City of Calgary’s expectation that members of the Partnership would support the entire package as an integrated approach to planning, servicing and governance.”
And further, he says that, “City Council agreed that, with the approval by the Partnership on June 19th of the planning policies and governance structure as detailed in the proposed CMP, the City would be prepared to share its water license, with the further understanding that where the City of Calgary’s bulk water license is used, Calgary will be the bulk water and waste water service provider.
This sounds like some type of agreement to share water in return for contracting the services of the City to provide bulk water and waste water service.
The Priddis-Millarville Residents Association representing 400 people living in the MD of Foothills have now officially joined the coalition of community groups opposing the Calgary Regional Partnership/Calgary Metropolitan Plan.
President Frances Jackson Dover is asking residents to write letters to the Premier and to Ted Morton to protest the following:
a) Water supply, in our area that cannot sustain the forecasted population increase
b) Concern for forcing the Calgary Regional Partnership? without proper consultation and comprehension by Albertans to be affected
c) Voting structure on future decision that is clearly weighted on the side of the City of Calgary
d) Introduction of Compact Urban nodes (Blue nodes shown on CRP maps during open houses) which will freeze land of the residents for up to 60 years.
It appears that all is NOT going according to plan with the Calgary Regional Partnership and its Calgary Regional/Metropolitan Plan–a “Jekyll and Hyde” plan that pretends to be one thing but is instead something else completely.
Case in point, the CRP took a vaguely worded plan out on the road, known as the “Calgary Regional Plan.” This, despite the fact that it was known that the plan would be renamed the “Calgary Metropolitan Plan.” The thinking from within the CRP was that this would not be accepted as readily as a “regional plan” so it was decided to hold off on releasing the real name until AFTER the public consultation.
Then, there is the curious fact that the governance and decision-making model of the partnership could not be found ANYWHERE in the Calgary Regional Plan. It was only AFTER the CMP appeared and the public consultation was completed, that the description of the super or double majority voting was fully described and inserted into the document in all of its glory. To be fair, the CRP representatives did not shy away from mentioning the Calgary veto in its open house presentations. They explained it verbally but without seeing it in writing in the plan, it was easy for some to dismiss it as something that would only be used in extraordinary circumstances. Of course, we now know that this myth of the Calgary veto being only applicable in very extreme cases (as it was downplayed at the many open houses that I attended) is simply not true.
I’ve obtained a copy of the memo to the CMP steering committee from Airdrie Mayor Linda Bruce in which she says, “In reviewing the attached resolutions I was quite surprised to see the volume and extent of the CMP revisions that are being proposed by a few CRP members at this point in our process. In order to be able to effectively address these fundamental issues at our next meeting I have directed staff to summarize the key issues that are being raised and to provide background information to support our deliberations.” As one person involved with the NoCalgaryVeto campaign said to me “this comment suggests that they really DO NOT want feedback at all — but only want to give the appearance of consultation and feedback.” This sounds like a justifiable opinion given that the plan was introduced on 12 short weeks ago and at that time, the CRP was claiming that it wanted public input. Now that they have that input Mayor Bruce is “surprised at the volume and extent of the revisions.”
Four municipalities, Okotoks, the MD of Foothills, the MD of Rocky View and the County of Wheatland are all asking for changes to the DRAFT plan in response to concerns from the citizens. At the end of a public consultation, is it not normal to incorporate the feedback into the plan in some meaningful way? It appears that the Stelmach government’s idea of public consultation is taking hold at every level and in every area of government–presentations designed to persuade people of a certain pre-determined course of action, ridiculous surveys that are designed to support that pre-determined course of action and then, surprise when members of the public are upset that they haven’t been heard.
The amendments and revisions suggested by the municipalities should not be at all surprising since they merely reflect issues that were raised in the open houses. When you also consider that this is a plan that is supposed to guide development for 60 years–well, it’s no wonder people are worried. Even CRP-supporter Okotoks Town Manager, Rick Quail called the decision on whether to sign on to the CMP plan as THE second most important decision the Town has ever made (the first being the decision to create the Sustainable Okotoks policy 10 years ago). Too bad the Okotoks submission to the CRP is not more specific in terms of what amendments they want made to the plan.
So, now the schedule calls for a meeting on June 3 to discuss all the issues and recommendations. Presumably, the steering committee will bring forward a recommendation to the meeting of the Executive Committee on June 12, at which time, there will need to be a decision about what changes will be made. The proposed changes are substantial and will most certainly conflict with the expectations of the City of Calgary in their letter to the CRP. The Town of Cochrane comments in its letter that the June ratification of the Proposed CMP not be delayed so that refinement and implementation work can begin.” The Town is pushing for stronger policies for the Regional Landscape section of the plan but is either unconcerned or unaware that any policy changes would be subject to the Calgary veto. Stay tuned…
Part One: Calgary says they have “made it clear.”
Part Two: Okotoks fails to be specific.
Part Three: MD of Rocky View has five concerns.
Part Four: MD of Foothills has three concerns.
Part Five: County of Wheatland is back in and asking for changes.
By Enrique Massot
The MD of Rocky View will push for last minute changes to the Calgary Regional Partnership’s (CRP) proposed land-use plan, before it is presented to its members for approval on June 19.
“We want to know: can we have a water allocation from the Province of Alberta?” said Rocky View Reeve Lois Habberfield. “If we have three per cent growth, we want three per cent (water) allocation.”
A draft plan was presented to the CRP’s general assembly in June 2008, giving municipalities nearly a year to suggest changes. The fact that the MD waited so long to offer changes doesn’t sit well with CRP chair Linda Bruce.
“We extended the time to give councils time to work with the citizens,” said Bruce, who is the mayor of Airdrie. “At this point, we are ready to go.”
The first-ever land-use plan for the Calgary region will require municipalities to develop to urban densities as high as eight to 10 units per acre as a condition to be connected to servicing. However, Habberfield said the plan does not detail water provision for lower density areas of the MD.
“Elbow Valley for example — we should be servicing that area,” she said.
The MD has received several other concerns regarding the CRP’s plan.
At a May 19 special council meeting, several developers encouraged council not to endorse the draft plan, and to lobby for changes. Murray Fox, executive vice-president of Jayman MasterBuilt, asked Rocky View council to demand the CRP include the Big Hill Springs conceptual scheme in the regional plan. The development, slated to house as many as 10,000 people on 1,100 acres in northwest Rocky View, was approved by council in 2007, but has not been included in the metropolitan plan.
MD residents, on the other hand, have asked council to oppose the plan, but for different reasons. “We do not want sprawl,” said Kim Magnuson, who lives in Springbank. “We depend on you (council) now to say no to the Calgary Metropolitan Plan.” Bearspaw resident Al Sacuta said the plan’s urban nodes, once serviced, would inevitably spread out into the country. “These nodes will blow out like metastasizing tumors, allowing for urban sprawl in rural areas,” he said.
The three rural municipal members of the CRP have also expressed concern regarding the partnership’s decision making system. Under the super-majority vote system, all motions require the support of Calgary as well 12 of the 17 members municipalities.
Habberfield said there are deep differences between the MD and the CRP.
http://rockyviewweekly.awna.com/story1.html
Another community is forced into line due to its dependence on water from Calgary. As Rick Butler of the CRP says: “Calgary will make it very clear that their condition on their water license is that you follow the plan and you don’t give water to any project that doesn’t follow the Calgary Metropolitan Plan.” The article goes on to quote Butler as saying that the CRP offers very little environmental protection–the hope is that this will come under the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan–remind me again, why we are even doing this regional plan, then!!???
Here’s the complete article as it appeared in the Cochrane Times:
Although Cochrane’s town council wanted stiffer environmental regulation in the Calgary Regional Partnership’s metropolitan plan, they unanimously endorsed the document at the May 25 regular meeting of council.
Rick Butler, executive director of the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) said Cochrane would be affected in three primary ways if the general assembly accepts the document June 19. If the plan passes, Butler said Cochrane would see big changes in water, public transportation and land-use.
As the plan currently sits, the City of Calgary will provide Cochrane with a portion of its water license to draw water from the Bow River and service the town and other outlying areas. Rapid bus transportation is still included in the CRP’s plan and Cochrane could see bus servicing in the near future. And all future growth in the area will be denser, preserving natural and agricultural areas and reducing infrastructure costs.
With Calgary providing part of its license to Cochrane, Coun. Tara McFadden asked Butler if Cochrane would retain autonomy over land-use decisions regarding water and if Cochrane’s present license would be controlled by the municipality.
Butler said, “it will be like the Town of Cochrane owning that water license capacity, but it will be the City of Calgary holding it. There will be locked-tight legal agreements.”
Butler said the City would offer Cochrane the license under the pretense that local land-use planning falls under CRP guidelines.
“Calgary will make it very clear that their condition on their water license is that you follow the plan and you don’t give water to any project that doesn’t follow the Calgary Metropolitan Plan,” Butler said.
Coun Miles Chester was concerned that the metropolitan plan did not include environmental protection provisions like setbacks from sensitive areas and wetlands.
“One of the fears that I have is that all the data that has produced by the Calgary Region goes to waste, because there is a great deal of data that actually says we should be protecting a lot of these areas,” Chester said.
But Butler said the CRP faced very stiff opposition from a number of municipalities in the region and made a very conscious decision not to act as an added layer of government and beaucracy.
He did add though, that he is holding out hope that the South Saskatchewan Region, which the CRP is a part of, will promote stronger environmental policies supported by the Alberta government.
Just say NO! to a Calgary VETO 