As Rocky View County (RVC) continues to explore changing its municipal designation, public information sessions are planned throughout the area to gather feedback and educate residents on what the change might mean.
“Any time we can get the most amount of feedback and input, we can make a better decision,” said Amy Zaluski, intergovernmental manager.
The County is currently looking at becoming a Specialized Municipality, she said. Under the Municipal Government Act (MGA), several municipal classifications exist.
“A Specialized Municipality is one that has characteristics of one or more,” she said. “It’s not generally one or generally another, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all.”
Today, six Specialized Municipalities exist in Alberta. Zaluski said they have a mix of urban areas and rural areas.
Changing RVC’s designation could result in several benefits, she said. One significant benefit is the ability to differentiate between urban and rural areas, and to deliver different levels of services to those areas supported by appropriate tax rates.
“That will always be weighed against council’s continued goals for maintaining competitive and reasonable tax rates in the region,” she added.
There are also grants available for urban areas that RVC currently does not have access to, Zaluski said. Becoming a Specialized Municipality would provide access to those funds.
Changing municipal status is primarily a governance matter, she said, and residents likely wouldn’t see very many changes, initially.
“If council wanted to consider a different tax rate or assessment rate in a particular area, that would still require them to do a tax rate bylaw for that area, which would require public consultation and a council decision,” she said.
Public consultation is a required part of the application to Municipal Affairs, Zaluski said. Two sessions are planned before the end of March, taking place at RockPointe Church from 6 to 8 p.m. March 23 and at County Hall in Balzac from 4 to 7 p.m. March 25. Two more sessions will take place April 6 at Sarah Thompson School in Langdon and April 8 at C3 Church in Springbank, both from 6 to 8 p.m.
“It will be an information drop-in session, and I’ll do a short presentation at 15 minutes past each hour to give some general information,” she said.
The presentation slides are now available on a page dedicated to the project at rockyview.ca
County staff will also be on hand to answer questions at the sessions.
Then, starting March 23, RVC will collect feedback through an online survey at rockyview.ca. This information will be presented to council in a report in May, at which time it will decide if it wants to proceed with an application to Municipal Affairs.
“This project is quite different than a lot of the other things we do,” Zaluski said. “It’s not like a land use plan, where we can say, ‘We’re going to put this there and that there.’ It’s very much about how we govern the municipality.”
To that end, she said, RVC hopes to gather “people’s thoughts on if they think this is a reasonable idea, if this is the way the municipality should go, or if they even care about it.”
Ben Sherick, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @BenSherick
