The overarching planning document that provides future direction for how development in Canmore should occur was in front of elected officials this week for third and final reading, however, council opted to take a bit more time to consider changes to the document that have and have not been made.
Mayor John Borrowman spoke to the motion to postpone third reading of the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) Tuesday night (Aug. 16) at council’s first meeting back from summer break.
Borrowman said the process the legislation has taken over the past year has included two public hearings, public consultation and two council workshops, but a few more weeks are needed for councillors to have confidence in what they are approving.
“There would be a benefit to allow councillors to spend a little more time with the document,” said the mayor. “We have been on this road for a long time – a year or more. I think it would be a better document if we give it a little more time.”
Specifically, Borrowman said, he hopes by postponing council can consider a number of factors, including the possible unintended consequences amendments to the MDP can have.
“I am hoping that with a bit more time we will end up with a Municipal Development Plan that has unanimous support,” he said.
But postponing the planning document also meant two other policies up for consideration in conjunction with the MDP were also postponed for decision. The steep creek hazard and risk policy and the environmental impact statement policy are both postponed, along with the MDP, until Sept. 6 when council will consider them again.
Development planner Tracy Woitenko went through the most recent changes to the MDP to occur after a second public hearing was held in June. In fact, so many changes have occurred to the MDP the version in front of council for consideration was number seven.
“Administration has spent a significant amount of time going over the public input and in some cases the public input was contradictory and not everyone said the same thing,” Woitenko said. “In some cases, the recommendations or requests are not things you would consider in a Municipal Development Plan, so it was the wrong planning document. In some cases suggestions were outside our jurisdiction to regulate. In some cases, input also suggested operational changes that administration did not feel were reasonable to include in the MDP.
“Even though we did hear all the public input, it is not all recommended for incorporation into the document.”
Conservation of environmentally sensitive areas was a key concern at the second public hearing, with multiple submissions calling for inclusion of a definition of adjacency when it comes to development proposals near wildlife corridors and habitat patches. As well, many public submissions called for a mandatory environmental impact study when developments are adjacent to environmentally sensitive areas.
Woitenko said administration continues to recommend that the details of what is required and when for an environmental impact study be in a separate policy. She said adjacency in the MDP is set out as being consistent with the Bow Corridor Ecosystem Advisory Group’s guidelines for wildlife corridors and habitat patches instead of providing definition of adjacent in metres.
Throughout the MDP process, administration has maintained that discretion be permitted for requiring an environmental impact study. The MDP sets out that a requirement will be evaluated on the nature and scope of the proposed development, including type of land use and intensity of development, as well as potential adverse environmental impacts.
The section of the MDP that dealt with a third party review of an environmental impact study has seen significant changes. Typically, the municipality selects its own consultant to review the work of the consultant hired by an applicant. The challenge, said the mayor, is oftentimes councillors are presented with two opposing expert opinions and tasked with deciding which one is correct.
As drafted now, the MDP sets out that the independent consultant would work with the applicant’s consultant throughout the process of developing an EIS.
“So throughout the entire process, feedback is given to the consultant rather than just at the end of the process,” Woitenko said, adding the cost of the process would be born by the applicant.
Maps included as part of the Municipal Development Plan also saw changes made or proposed, including the map of the urban growth boundary and conceptual land use map.
Changes to the urban growth boundary are not made lightly by council. The Community Sustainability Plan that was in front of council several years ago for consideration had to be completely rescinded after council voted unanimously to approve a change proposed by then mayor Ron Casey to the growth boundary map related to the Three Sisters Mountain Village lands included in that version of a municipal development plan.
Council changed the growth boundary at second reading at the request of the property owner of a parcel of land located on Harvie Heights Road that has been outside the growth boundary since 1998.
But that was not the only piece of privately owned land located outside the urban growth boundary that saw its owner ask council to consider changing the map. Woitenko said owners of a property in south Canmore that is outside the growth boundary requested it be put inside.
Woitenko told council as well that administration opposes the change made at second reading and would recommend changing the map back.
“We deal with changes to the map through a process,” she said. “This change was made outside the proposed process.”
The map in the MDP up until version 7 showed an area to still be determined on the urban growth boundary map – that area being the subject of the Three Sisters Mountain Village Smith Creek area structure plan process. The ASP has yet to be submitted, and includes TSMV lands as far east as Thunderstone Quarry.
The quarry was removed from the area considered as “still to be determined,” said Woitenko, because it is consistent with what is in the current Municipal Development Plan and NRCB decision.
