My responses to the Crowsnest Pass Promoter

These appeared in the paper on Friday Oct 8th



1. What do you think council’s three top priorities should be for the next term?

Increased tax base by attracting new Business and development.
Keep Tax Increases to a minimum by being more efficient
Rebuild our financial reserves so that the municipality as the options to look at new initiatives in the future

2. What specific actions need to be taken to expand our tax base?

We need to look at the option of hiring a person to market our community, attracting business is not that simply ever community in rural Alberta is looking to attract business, if we don't have professional help we will not suceed.
Second if a business looked at our community that required a large piece of land, along the highway, that's serviced and flat. What do we have to offer? we need to clear the land that the old hospital stands on if we want to attract commercial business.
Tax Breaks for new businesses do not work, past experience shows they leave when the tax breaks run out.
How do you think our thirty tax paying local restaurants would feel if we gave a big name restaurant a tax break to compete with them?

3. Describe your ideal land use plan for both residential and commercial development?

The province is planning to have the South Saskatchewan regional land use plan in place next year, which our Municipal Development plan must conform with. In 2011 we should review our Municipal development plan with the input of the public the present plan is ten years old. Future growth will happen, the municipality and its residents must decide where and what type of growth. We need to create a balance between increasing our tax base, preserving the environment, and increasing the density of development where services such as water and sewer are accessible.

4. The municipality has an $18 million budget. What experience do you have to manage this?

Six years on Council, where I have always attempted to be aggressive in encouraging both Council and Administration to come up with ways of been more efficient with the taxpayers dollars. More can be done, I am hopeful that the next Council will take the opportunity to put out for tender our engineering something that as not been done in eight years, an area where substantial dollars are spent every year.

5. How will you define success for the governance of Crowsnest Pass?

A council that works as a team, one that starts with the Mayor being a leader not a dictator. One where people come to a council meeting looking to make decisions based on facts, information, numbers, debate etc. A Council that three years from now can say the Crowsnest Pass as achieved tremendous positive change.

Development in the Crowsnest Pass And Security Requirements

I have been asked by a number of people in the last few days about my Notice of Motion requiring security being provided to the municipality prior to a developer commencing a project.
The Motion appears below, I think we all understand the reasoning for it! maybe not read below, after the Motion.

Notice of Motion
"From this day, forth the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass shall require that all applicants entering into a development agreement within the boundaries of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass.
Shall provide the Municipality one hundred percent (100%) of the performance security that is sufficient to ensure that all of the terms of the development agreement are fulfilled to the satisfaction of the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass.
All funds must be in the legal possession of the Municipality prior to the applicant commencing any part of the development agreement.
Under no circumstances will any developer be permitted to commence any type of excavation, stockpiling of materials, or disturbance of the land in question prior to the Municipality of Crowsnest Pass having the agreed to security deposit in its legal possession."

This Motion was debated on Tuesday night, with council choosing to send it to committee meeting to clarify the language (August 24).
The good Mayor attempted to argue that this would stop anybody from doing any kind of work on their properties, which everybody that knows that stuff, is covered of by a development permit.
This motion clearly only applies to development agreements, everybody understands that the purpose of this is to stop the possibility of a developer coming in making a hell of a mess, and leaving the community to live with it for years to come, with no financial recourse to clean up. I am not talking about stopping John Smith from building a shed in his back yard without a Million dollars in security being put up.
Maybe somebody is going to argue that we should take this risk again down the road.

Municipal Development Plan in the Crowsnest Pass

Over the last couple of weeks I have been criticized a number of times for not supporting a new Municipal Development Plan.

The present plan is indeed out dated, the population of the Crowsnest Pass has changed significantly over the last ten years. The public deserves to have their input in to a new plan. I agree with all of those statements, so why did I not support proceeding with a new Municipal Development Plan this year? For the following reasons:

First of all the process is expensive (minimum of $50,000 I've been told by politicians in other municipalities that its probably closer to $100,000), its timely would probably take 6-12 months.

I recognize that the time and money need to be spent, but not now not until the Alberta Government decides where it is going with its regional plans under the Land Use Framework.
The Crowsnest Pass could come up with a plan that does not conform with the Land Use framework and all that time and money would be for nothing.

Take the time to read the Land Use Framework Plan the link is on the left hand side of the blog and below.
http://www.landuse.alberta.ca/documents/Final_Land_use_Framework.pdf

I will point out some areas to make my point:

Strategy 2 (Page 7)
"The Secretariat will develop regional plans in conjunction with government departments and Regional Advisory Councils. Final decisions on regional plans rests with Cabinet"

Are regional plans in place? have they been accepted by cabinet? No and No.

Strategy 3 (Page 7)

" A cumulative effects management approach will be used in regional plans to manage the combined impacts of existing and new activities within the region"

Within the region a cumulative effects approach will be used, once again the regional plan needs to be in place to see how we fit within it.

Provincial Leadership (Page 19)

"The Land Use Framework leaves final decision making authority with the same local officials who currently exercise it. However in the future; these decisions will have to be consistent with regional plans"

How can we be consistent with the regional plan until it is in place?

Strategy 1 (Page 19)

"Municipalities and provincial government departments will be required to comply with regional plans in their decision making"

How can our MDP conform with the regional plan until it is in place?

Local Planning (Page 26)

"However in the face of increasing pressures and conflicts the Government of Alberta needs to ensure that provincial interests are addressed at a local scale"

Would our plan conform with provincial interests? we do not know they have not told us what they are.

Municipal Planning (Page 26)

"Municipalities will be required to ensure their plans and decisions are consistent with regional plans"

We will not know the regional plan until sometime in 2010

Municipalities will;

"Prepare context statements outlining how their MDP's will align with and address provincial directions stated in regional plans, and amend municipal planning documents to adopt and align with regional planning directions"

How can we do the above without the regional plan?

Appeal Mechanisms (Page 27)

"Decision making bodies will be required to comply with regional plans and if any regional plan compliance issues arise, they will be resolved in existing review and appeal systems"

then it goes on to make the following statement;

"Because they are approved by Cabinet, regional plans are government policies and cannot be appealed"

So if you put a MDP in places that does not conform with the regional plan you do not even have the ability to appeal the regional plan.

On Page 47 the Land Use Framework clearly states that the regional plan for our area will be completed in 2010, why would anybody take the risk with taxpayers money of putting together a MDP prior to that?