As Rocky View County (RVC) moves forward with targeted amendments to the County Plan before undertaking a comprehensive review of the document, questions have arisen regarding the steps being taken, and the associated costs. Council approved a $150,000 budget adjustment at a regular meeting Feb. 26 that will allow the municipality to hire a consultant to carry out limited-scope amendments to the County Plan, according to a Terms of Reference (TOR) adopted by council Jan. 22. At that time, council also approved a TOR for a comprehensive review of the planning document. “Administration has examined the Planning Services 2019 work plan and budget and is currently at full capacity, with a significant number of projects either in process or recently approved to begin, in addition to the regular file load,” said Supervisor of Planning Policy Amy Zaluski. According to staff’s report, those projects include a rewrite of the Land Use Bylaw, a regional growth and servicing plan, and a number of Area Structure Plans. Therefore, Zaluski said, administration recommended a consultant be retained to prepare the targeted amendments and conduct public engagement. “In order for administration to prepare the County Plan amendments internally, other projects would need to be removed from the 2019 work plan,” she said. Staff requested budgetary quotes and estimated timeframes from several consulting firms, Zaluski said, and established the amendments would cost between $85,000 and $150,000 and take around nine to 10 months to complete. “Erring on the side of caution, we thought it prudent to ask for the higher amount to ensure that we can cover costs,” she said. “Of course, if we don’t use all the costs, then we won’t spend that.” The push to amend and rewrite RVC’s highest planning document has already been criticized for its necessity – before any costs were associated. “In redoing the County Plan, the current council majority clearly demonstrated its disdain for public input or public good,” wrote former councillor Jerry Arshinoff in a letter to the Rocky View Weekly Feb. 5. “The County Plan had the greatest amount of public input of anything ever held in RVC.” According to former councillor Liz Breakey, some of the “minor amendments” proposed for the targeted review are, in her opinion, quite major, with implications for growth in the County. “These are changes that affect everybody, and we had made an undertaking with the County Plan that was supposed to see us through 10 years,” she said. “[After] five and a half years, we’re radically amending population goals.” Like Arshinoff, Breakey said extensive public engagement was undertaken to help shape the County Plan. As the process of amending the County Plan – followed by a rewrite of the plan – moves forward, Breakey worries that feedback may be disregarded. With a price tag now attached to the project, some councillors are now also questioning the logic of spending such a significant amount of money on changes to a document that would later be rewritten. “To put aside $150,000 to work on this, to come up with some tentative changes that may or may not prompt a review by the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) – is this prudent, or should we not just be doing the whole thing at once?” Coun. Samanntha Wright asked. RVC’s Chief Administrative Officer Al Hoggan reminded council it had already approved both the targeted review and the comprehensive review. “We’re only coming here to you today to say, this is the cost attached to them,” he said. “I’m a little surprised because, when the Terms of Reference was approved, there was obviously going to be costs attached to it.” Deputy Reeve Al Schule made a motion to approve the budget adjustment, which was carried 7-2, with Wright and Coun. Crystal Kissel opposed. “I realize that we said we would do both…but now the cost is here,” Wright said. “I just can’t justify $150,000 now to do some minor changes – they’re very specific in nature – to a document that exists today.” Administration will now prepare a Request for Proposal to seek a consulting firm to prepare the amendments, Zaluski said, and a budget request to allow administration to outsource the comprehensive review of the County Plan will come before council March 12.
