Rocky View County (RVC) council voted unanimously to direct administration to begin public consultation on three proposed off-site levy bylaws at a regular meeting July 10.
“I’m excited this is going to the public for their input,” said Deputy Reeve Jerry Gautreau, who made the motion to begin the engagement process.
Rick Wiljamaa, manager of Engineering Services, said RVC has prepared new off-site levy bylaws for stormwater, water and wastewater, and transportation. According to administration’s report, municipalities are required to consult with stakeholders prior to amending or imposing off-site levies. Those consultations must include discussions about existing and future infrastructure that will be funded through the levies, the methodology the levies will be based on and how levies will be applied in the benefiting areas.
Wiljamaa said the consultation process will consist of engaging the public through a number of open houses.
“As well, we will be working with the industry, Rocky View 2020, potentially Rocky View Forward,” he said. “As well, we will be working with anybody that is identified as a stakeholder.”
Proposed changes to the Transportation Off-Site Levy include a base levy calculated on a much smaller developable area of 127,360 acres, compared to the 596,897 under the current bylaw.
“Administration does not anticipate that almost 600,000 acres of the county is going to actually develop where we would be able to levy those dollars,” he said. “What we’ve done is focus the transportation levy on area structure plans (ASP).”
Other changes include a new split-levy approach based on ASPs that apply to rural and urban areas, the addition of the McKnight/Stoney Trail East Interchange into the Conrich Special Area and a reduction of the minimum residential parcel size subject to the levy from 9.88 acres to 7.41 acres.
According to Wiljamaa, many costs under the proposed water and wastewater off-site levy will drop on a per-acre basis.
“We’ve trimmed up the numbers based on current construction estimate costs, what we actually paid for when we actually constructed the water and wastewater facilities that we currently have,” he said.
The proposed levy also includes Bragg Creek, which Wiljamaa said is not on the current levy since the bylaw predates the construction of that facility.
The previous stormwater off-site levy only applied to the Co-operative Stormwater Management Initiative (CSMI), a partnership between various regional partners aiming to develop a long-term stormwater management system. However, Wiljamaa said due to a provincial grant, RVC proposes amending the CSMI rate to $5,587 per gross acre.
Wiljamaa added other changes include components not originally in CSMI, as well as areas like Conrich, Langdon, Omni and Janet, which he said were not originally in the CSMI service area but will eventually connect.
General manager Byron Riemann said RVC would begin hosting open houses in September.
“The part of the process that we can’t give you a hardline date is public input and public open houses,” he said. “We are entering into summer and, obviously, we don’t want to impose upon the public to be available for July and August, in terms of attending these open houses.”
Once information is gathered from the public consultations, Riemann said, administration will be able to determine a timeline to bring the bylaws back for council’s consideration.
Coun. Mark Kamachi was absent from the meeting and did not vote on the decision.
