It would be fair to say that the road travelled by the Town of Canmore to get to the point of third reading and approval of an updated Municiapl Development Plan began over 10 years ago.
It was at that time that the community began a visioning process dubbed Mining the Future – which was originally intended to inform the process of creating a new MDP for the community to replace the 1998 version of the statutory planning document.
But things didn’t turn out as anticipated – as it took until Tuesday night (Sept. 13) for third reading of an updated and rewritten Municipal Development Plan to be passed by council.
Mayor John Borrowman took a moment to reflect on the process and the fact that over the past year, administration and council have worked on the long, complex and “at times trying” process.
“It is not surprising, given the many issues that affect planning in Canmore,” said the mayor. “But it has been the most difficult process I have been involved with in the years I have sat on council.”
The document has seen seven draft versions presented at open houses, two public hearings and council meetings by the planning department’s Tracy Woitenko, who was project lead because she has past experience drafting MDPs.
Borrowman said it was important to take time to define and balance the community’s needs into the future from a social, economic and environmental perspective.
Fellow councillors Joanna McCallum and Sean Krausert echoed how important it has been to listen to all the feedback from residents, businesses, the development industry, conservation groups and administration to reach a place where council felt comfortable approving the MDP.
“I do want to express my appreciation for all the work put into it over all the years,” Krausert said. “I think what we have before us is a good balance of all those at times competing and completely opposite interests.”
Third reading of the MDP was a long process, with council taking more than four hours to debate proposed changes to the plan by administration and their own proposed changes individually.
Some major amendments occurred on Tuesday night, including changes to the urban growth boundary, clarity around the definition of adjacency and third party reviews of environmental impact statements. There was also a major change to the policy direction contained in the affordable housing section of the MDP that would open the door for granting variances for proposals that increase the amount of affordable housing in the community.
Councillor Vi Sandford put forward a motion to remove the following clause: “The Town’s decision-making authorities should consider granting variances where it is determined the net affordable housing benefit to the community would outweigh any negative impact on a neighbourhood.”
Sandford called the policy direction “too prescriptive” and was supported unanimously by council in taking it out of the MDP.
“I would like to see this removed completely because I don’t think the Town’s decision makers should be (required to) give variances just because affordable housing is in place in a community,” she said.
Another major change to the MDP made Tuesday night was a reversal of a previous motion to change the urban growth boundary map in the planning document to include 101 and 105 Harvie Heights Road inside the boundary.
Krausert made the motion at second hearing to include the lands currently outside the urban growth boundary, and it was passed. Since that time, however, several councillors said they have reconsidered the map change.
The mayor argued against using the MDP approval process as the appropriate place to change the growth boundary at the request of individual property owners. The new MDP sets out criteria for changing the growth boundary, and Borrowman said that is the appropriate process to change the map.
“If the landowner can easily meet all these terms, then it should be fairly straightforward,” he said.
Krausert, however, was successful in convincing fellow councillors to support changes to the environmental stewardship section of the MDP. The changes accepted by council set out that adjacency for that section of the MDP is to be determined in a manner consistent with the Bow Corridor Ecosystem Advisory Group’s (BCEAG) wildlife corridor and habitat patch guidelines, updated and accepted by Canmore council in 2012. The change removed the wording “and other relevant criteria may be considered as well.”
“I think the BCEAG guidelines bring us to a point of certainty to determine adjacency and as soon as you add that bit at the end, we move to a place of uncertainty as to what is adjacency,” Krausert said.
He argued the development authority can always consider additional relevant information and the MDP sets out that just because something is considered adjacent, doesn’t mean an environmental impact study will be required.
A lot of debate in the past several months has surrounded whether or not there should be a requirement for an independent third party review of an environmental impact study. One suggestion put forward was that the municipality and the applicant would together have one consultant to create a single EIS for consideration.
Krausert put forward a successful motion to require a third party review of the EIS.
“I think a fully independent review of an EIS is very important,” added the mayor.
The MDP includes a section on implementation and monitoring and the mayor put forward a successful motion to direct administration to create a list of indicators in 2017 to monitor implementation of the plan.
Two additional policies that were to be considered after the MDP – steep creek and hazard and risk policy and the EIS policy – were not approved by council at the meeting and will return at a future council meeting for consideration.
