Rocky View County will begin the second stage of drafting a new Municipal Development Plan (MDP) with more public engagement planned through the end of November and into December.
The first round of engagement – initially six open houses in late August and early September – concluded mid-October with two additional open houses targeting farmers who were unable to provide feedback due to the harvest. According to Manager of Planning and Development Services Matthew Wilson, O2 Planning + Design, the consulting firm heading up the project, has since prepared a summary of the findings that is available on rockyview.ca
“When we look at the summary, we’re seeing much the same thing that other people are seeing,” he said. “In terms of values…it’s the rural lifestyle, peace and quiet, and the natural landscape. When we look at priorities, we see it’s basically to protect RVC’s natural landscape, preserve agricultural lands, focus growth in existing and planned hamlets [and] expand the network of parks and trails across the County.”
To some degree, Wilson said, these priorities are consistent with the way the municipality is already growing.
According to the summary, 585 people provided feedback online and 364 attended the open houses. Wilson said RVC was generally satisfied with the participation from residents in the process so far.
“More feedback is almost always better, but, from my perspective, this is not unsatisfactory,” he said. “This is a reasonable number of people, statistically speaking…. I don’t think it’s an inaccurate reflection of the community’s interests.”
The current project was initiated in January, after RVC council directed administration to undertake both a targeted and comprehensive review of the County Plan before opting to scrap those projects and develop a new MDP in March.
“Our relatively new council took a look at the existing County Plan document, and determined that, through the [passage] of time, but also through what they understood as the development interests in RVC, that this was an ideal time to be reviewing the plan,” Wilson said.
The MDP – which will become RVC’s principle statutory document – is basically the vision for the County’s future planning and development, Wilson noted. He encouraged residents to continue to track the project and to participate in the public engagement to ensure their feedback is being heard, recorded and ultimately included in the forthcoming plan.
“The MDP can seem very high level – it doesn’t really give individual landowners clear land-use rights, necessarily,” Wilson said. “But it is the starting point for all of the planning that occurs in RVC. From that perspective, it is really important that people pay attention to it, take it seriously and provide meaningful feedback.”
The second stage of the project will comprise seven more open houses, beginning Nov. 27 and running until Dec. 11. A full list of locations can be found on rockyview.ca by searching “MDP.” Residents will also be able to provide feedback online through a survey on the County’s website until Dec. 13.
While the first round of engagement was meant as more of a fact-finding exercise, according to Wilson, this latest initiative will provide more information to residents and stakeholders. Feedback from previous engagement was used to produce growth strategies and vision, which residents will now have a chance to respond to.
Following this round of engagement, Wilson said, O2 will again compile the information gathered through the open houses and the survey, and will begin drafting the new MDP. He added staff anticipates releasing the draft in March 2020, after which more public engagement will occur.
