With an updated draft of the Land Use Bylaw (LUB) now released, Rocky View County (RVC) has been conducting public engagement with open houses and will continue to solicit feedback online until the end of the month.
According to Sean MacLean, supervisor of Planning and Development, an update to the County’s LUB – which regulates land development and subdivision in RVC – has been an ongoing project for several years, and is long overdue.
“The current LUB that is in effect right now was drafted and passed in 1998,” he said. “Since 1998, there hasn’t been a full-scale review of these regulations.”
The project was initiated in October 2016, MacLean said, to consolidate similar regulations, update regulations and generally make the bylaw more user-friendly.
“The LUB has impacts on people’s development rights and development potential, which impacts their day-to-day lives – what can they build on their property [and] what can their neighbour build on their property,” he said.
Because of the complexity of the LUB and its impact on development in the County, MacLean said, a significant and comprehensive analysis period took place from 2016 on. This year, a draft of the updated bylaw was completed, which RVC released at the end of September.
Now, the county is conducting public engagement to gather feedback and educate residents on the draft bylaw. The 106-page document is available to review online via rockyview.ca/landusebylawreview, and RVC is hosting an online survey on its website until Oct. 27 to gather feedback.
The County also has an open house Oct. 17 from 5 to 8 p.m. at Prince of Peace Manor. Other sessions have already occurred at C3 Church in Springbank Oct. 7 and Oct. 10 at County Hall in Balzac.
“We want to make sure that when we are revising regulations, when we’re consolidating things and trying to make things more user-friendly for people, that we hear back from them and see [if there are] issues that they are seeing currently,” MacLean said.
According to MacLean, the first open house was well attended – approximately 120 people participated in the Springbank event. Residents primarily had clarifying questions about the project, he said.
“By and large, a large portion of it was the education piece,” he said. “There were people coming in asking questions about, ‘What is this project? How can I get involved? Is this going to impact what I want to do in the future?’”
According to MacLean, RVC will publicize the feedback it receives on the draft bylaw in a report after engagement is complete. That report will also inform the finalized version of the bylaw, which will be presented to council at a public hearing.
MacLean anticipated the final version of the LUB would be before council early in 2020, at which point it would be approved, amended or refused. MacLean noted that these types of bylaws tend to be evolving documents, and the County would monitor the impacts of a newly-implemented LUB and make any necessary amendments on an ongoing basis.
