Following 10 hours of public hearing on the proposed Conrich Area Structure Plan (ASP), Rocky View County (RVC) council moved to continue the hearing at its next meeting. While RVC Senior Planner Richard Barss said the hearing did give local residents the opportunity to provide input on the document, their feedback was “overshadowed” by the intermunicipal concerns presented by the City of Calgary and the City of Chestermere.
“There were wider regional things being spoken to, and from my perspective, was that the venue for that?” Barss asked. “It took away from the public hearing’s intent, which is to look at the merits of the plan for the residents in that community.”
The public hearing for the proposed document was already postponed once, due to requests from the adjacent municipalities in November. Barss said since then, RVC has been working with the two city administrations to come up with a revised ASP.
According to Barss, the proposed ASP will build a “complete community” in the Conrich area with a range of housing types, a main street, schools and a fire station. However, Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi argued that the area would lack “social infrastructure” like a library or a recreation centre – indicating that residents would be using facilities within Calgary.
“We welcome the people of (RVC) using our infrastructure, but we need to think about what this means,” he said. “We need to be much, much more thoughtful in how we think about regional planning. Many have argued that we don’t need the Calgary Municipal Plan (CMP) because our Intermunicipal Development Plans (IDP) work so well, but this is an example where that has not worked.”
Nenshi also raised concerns about the costs that would be incurred by the City of Calgary associated with the upgrading of interchanges in the area that would see “significant” traffic impacts.
“We want to be good partners and we want to help you develop, but it has to be in a way that doesn’t create undue costs to the City and is ultimately socially, financially and environmentally viable,” said Nenshi. “The people in Calgary need a strong (RVC). We need to figure out how to make this work on a regional basis.”
Councillor Greg Boehlke said he would be more than willing to “bargain in good faith” with the City, however, he requested that Nenshi leave the CMP and the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) out of the discussion, which he said was a completely different issue.
Boehlke also asked Nenshi about rumours that if RVC council approved the ASP, the City of Calgary would seek mediation as the first step toward proceeding with an appeal under Section 690 of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), and potentially annexing the land.
“You understand that doing something like this directly on our boundary leaves us with very little option, and under the MGA, that 690 is our only option,” said Nenshi. “You have the power to avoid that, not me.”
City of Chestermere representatives also addressed council at the hearing, speaking to concerns with the amount of industrial and commercial development proposed for the area. According to Mayor Patricia Matthews, the City would like to see the County finalize an IDP with Chestermere before continuing with the adoption of an ASP in the area.
“This document needs to be prioritized immediately so that critical pieces like stormwater, wildlife corridors, transportation, and many more issues can be fully addressed,” she said. “We are against first reading until an IDP is in place between our municipalities.”
Chair of the CRP and Mayor of Okotoks Bill Robertson said the plan “fails to consider the regional context.”
“I think the two cities had fairly narrow concerns that are addressable, but I think underlying those concerns was a wider agenda,” Barss said. “Hopefully, our next session will be much more focused on the plan. Council will let me address some of the comments we heard from the public, and will have the opportunity to ask questions.”
The Conrich ASP public hearing will resume at RVC council’s next meeting, on May 26. However, there will be no opportunity for the public to speak on the matter.
