Airdrie City council unanimously approved changes to Airdrie Transit’s GreenTRIP funding application at its Aug. 15 meeting.
Transit Co-ordinator Chris MacIsaac appeared before council to outline the changes to the application.
As reported in the July 14 edition of the Airdrie City View, the provincial government announced changes to the criteria for its GreenTRIP Incentives Program July 6, including allowing funding for capital projects like transit-stop upgrades and equipment refurbishments, as well as pilot projects.
“This is a revised presentation of what was presented to council in June,” MacIsaac said. “We had put our submission into the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) July 12…but the GreenTRIP criteria has been expanded.”
Airdrie Transit originally planned to apply for just less than $5.6 million in GreenTRIP funding, but increased that amount to nearly $6 million as a result of the changes to the program criteria.
The Alberta government has committed to investing $2 billion into the GreenTRIP program by 2020/21. This is the final time municipalities will be able to apply for GreenTRIP funding as the program winds down. Airdrie received $16.5 million in funding in 2015 as well as $2.78 million in 2012.
The revised application includes the expansion of both the regional and local transit fleet, completion of phase two of the south transit terminal, some technology upgrades, rehabilitation of existing buses and transit stops, among other things.
MacIsaac said he expects to hear back about what funding has been approved in the fall.
A section in Airdrie’s new Land Use Bylaw (LUB) should bring some relief to an Airdrie resident locked in an ongoing battle with his neighbour.
Cal Johnston appealed to council July 4 to help him deal with a neighbour he said is intentionally shining bright lights in his bedroom window after dark.
Johnston wrote a letter to council asking the Community Standards Bylaw be amended to prevent this behaviour. Airdrie’s bylaw currently has provisions dealing with noise control but none to deal with lighting control.
At the Aug. 15 council meeting, Municipal Enforcement Team Leader Lynn Mackenzie reported the new LUB, passed by council June 6, has a section which can be used to deal with nuisance lighting.
“A letter would go out to the owner or owners of the property saying your lights have caused a disturbance to somebody,” she said. “We would ask them to shroud them or turn them away to stop that from happening. If that didn’t happen, we’d issue a stop order and we could technically go through the courts to stop it.”
According to Mackenzie, the LUB has successfully been used one time to deal with nuisance lighting.
Two bylaws were unanimously approved by council, both of which were put forward by the City of Airdrie’s Planning Department.
Bylaw B-35/2-16 will allow the closure of a small road allowance between King’s Heights and the new community of Lanark to allow that sliver of land to be incorporated into lots in the new development.
Bylaw B-39/2016 removes the Municipal Reserve designation and amends the Land Use Bylaw for a 4.09-metre wide parcel of land between Towerlane Drive at Railway Avenue.
According to Acting Team Leader, Planning Services Stephen Utz, this “narrow strip of land has limited value and function as Municipal Reserve and is not currently programmed, or planned to be programmed, as passive or recreational park space.”
Council unanimously approved a request to have the month of September proclaimed Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and to illuminate City Hall in gold lights Sept. 1.
A request to also have September proclaimed Prostate Cancer Awareness Month was also unanimously approved by council.
