Major changes are coming to a regional planning board that rural members say favours urban-style development.
The Alberta government recently announced that, starting next year, it will not provide funding for the Calgary or Edmonton Metropolitan Region Boards and will make membership on the boards voluntary.
Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver said in a statement that both boards have been informed of the changes.
The province contributes about $1 million per year to the board in Calgary.
Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) members include Calgary, Airdrie, Chestermere, Cochrane, Okotoks, High River, Foothills County and Rocky View County. Members of the board were mandated to be a part of the CMRB when it started in 2018.
Cochrane Mayor Jeff Genung was disappointed to hear the news.
“I always approach those meetings as an opportunity to regionally collaborate on significant infrastructure items such as transportation, transit, police, economic development,” he said.
“And being mandated by the province to be there was important that we all were sitting around the table as equal partners and looking for a way to build a better region together,” Genung said.
He said the funding issue wasn’t as important as removing the mandate to participate.
Before the board was created, jurisdictions were operating in silos.
“So literally what was happening was one jurisdiction would be running a water line to a development area and another would be running one over top of that one to go to another development area and not working together,” he said. “I’m fearful that in the absence of that we’re going to go back to the way it was."
A representative from Foothills County was not immediately available to comment on the coming changes to the regional board, or about whether it plans to stay on as a member.
Foothills County has long been opposed to its membership on the board. Reeve Delilah Miller previously said that the board favours urban over rural members.
The Town of Okotoks said in a statement that the full implications of the changes aren't known, but that the Town sees value in regional planning and wants to be a strong regional steward.
Speaking at a committee meeting on Nov. 25, High River Mayor Craig Snodgrass said nobody knew the changes were coming.
“My concern is how the government made this decision,” Snodgrass said. “Nobody else was consulted on it.”
In 2021, the rural municipalities of Foothills County, Rocky View County and Wheatland County voted against the CMRB growth plan, but the plan passed with votes from the board's urban members. Wheatland County later cut ties with the board.
In Foothills County, plans for a major residential development, Highfield & Rowland Acres, were set to go to the CMRB, where it would either be approved or rejected.
The County also recently started work to review its Municipal Development Plan to align with CMRB policies, with a deadline of August 2025.
There is no word on how the changes will affect either of those projects.
With a file from Robert Korotyszn
