As a resident of Rock View County (RVC), I, and many other residents of RVC, vigorously oppose this change in Bylaw/Subdivision as it will clearly impact existing (Cochrane Lake) residents in the near future with dramatically increased densities and existing poorly conceived, planned and developed road, water, wastewater, school and emergency service infrastructure.
The Reeve of RVC and Councillor of Division 3, our RVC representative, needs to unanimously vote down this Subdivision Proposal and re-open the Cochrane Lake Area Structure Plan for a MAJOR re-assessment for local taxpayers and proposed developers.
These types of poorly planned subdivisions are not suitable without implementation of regional planning to provide integrated infrastructure planning between urban development and the Town of Cochrane (TOC) and RVC. This proposed Bylaw/Subdivision (ref. PL20240205) change applies to a single quarter section, but notification of this change was sent to residents of eight other quarter sections clearly indicating that RVC will subsequently extend this bylaw to impact hundreds, if not thousands, of residents. None of the existing residents have requested this change to broaden its impact.
The rationale of the RVC is quite clear, which is to increase density and property tax while ignoring planning and infrastructure development to adequately provide safe infrastructure for residents and school age children. The current infrastructure in and around Cochrane is dangerous with temporary roads not able to cope with light, heavy and industrial traffic, with endless band-aid transportation downgrades (theoretical upgrades) which don’t address the problem, just move it down the road where the problem is even worse.
The fact that RVC is dealing with three proposed increases in density, or newly announced subdivision proposals, within the RVC, all of which use the same process to produce the illusion of public consultation not transparency and community involvement the RVC claims to support. This repeatedly demonstrates the RVC is not genuine with its commitment to the public consultation processes. This communication distribution was a debacle of RVC administration and has repeatedly missed residents within the notification area. My partner received the latest notification, I did not. How is this possible?
It is clear that the RVC is not committed to the existing residents of RVC or public consultation and that this situation requires direct involvement from other departments of the Government of Alberta to bring attention to this RVC process and public commitment to produce meaningful change. This letter is also being sent to the Premier, Minister of Municipal Affairs, Ministry of Public Engagement, Minister of Transportation, Ministry of Public Safety and Emergency Services, and the current and pending Leader of the NDP as well as the Cochrane Eagle and the Rocky View Weekly.
Regards,
Ken Baker
Cochrane Lake, AB
