Athabasca County sought to “reset” parts of its troubled land use bylaw (LUB) and Municipal Development Plan (MDP) with a series of public workshops July 13-15.
The workshops, including two in Athabasca and one in Boyle, Wandering River and Perryvale, gave residents the chance to give feedback on the LUB and MDP, as well as ask questions on them. The new rounds of public consultations comes after Athabasca County opted not to proceed with overhauling the documents in 2017 due to public outcry.
The workshops were led by Municipal Planning Services (MPS), an external consulting firm hired by Athabasca County. MPS senior planner Jane Dauphinee said during a July 13 workshop at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex the process was aimed at addressing some of the sticky issues with the LUB and MDP.
“We did hit reset on some of these pieces and if you aren’t here, we may not do the things we need to do in order to ensure these are co-produced documents that reflect what you need,” Dauphinee said during a presentation July 13. “We hit the mark on some things but we totally missed the marks on other things. Hopefully we’ll do better.”
Athabasca County has been working to amend its LUB and MDP since 2015, Dauphinee said, and is still using the feedback it gathered since the process began.
Over 50 people attended a public hearing for the LUB and MDP Feb. 27, 2017, according to the county’s minutes from the hearing. The minutes showed the vast majority of comments spoken and read at the meeting were negative towards the documents.
But in an interview, Dauphinee said there are changes being explored from previous iterations of the documents. After consulting with Athabasca County, MPS is recommending agricultural land be kept as one land use area, as opposed to the two categories previously proposed, Dauphinee said.
It was a major sticking point for landowners opposed to the County LUB and MDP in 2017, she said.
“My understanding is there was a lot of hard feelings about whether or not those distinctions were creating two tiers of farmers. Setting up a scenario that was not going to be equitable,” Dauphinee said.
The workshop format had four primary topics for discussion identified as areas people had previously taken issue with, including natural resource extraction, agriculture, county residential and lake shore, and hamlet. A fifth, catch-all table was also set up for people to discuss issues outside those categories.
Coun. Dennis Willcott attended the July 13 workshop in Athabasca and said the the county wanted to host these workshops to give people more opportunity to provide feedback on the LUB and MDP than in previous consultations.
“The last time we had it, people said they never had enough chance and not enough places,” Willcott said in an interview. “This time we figure okay, we’ll have them in every corner (of the county) and then the people can come.”
Coun. Larry Armfelt also attended the July 13 workshop. He said nobody involved in making the LUB and MDP had any malicious intent and the county seeks to create an agreeable version of them.
“This is to rectify and create a positive document for as many people as possible,” Armfelt said in an interview.
County resident Denis Tremblay said during the July 13 workshop he opposed the previous version of the LUB and MDP, which would have rezoned his agricultural land. He said he felt people were not really consulted previously, but the county is on the right track now with respect to agriculture.
“They’ve listened, they’ve done their homework for what didn’t work in the past. They’re going the right direction for sure,” Tremblay said in an interview.
County resident Brenda Gilboe said she thought the weekend consultation process is excellent and she wanted to see the LUB meet the needs of citizens.
“I want to see it finalized and be compatible with the needs of the people of the county,” Gilboe said in an interview.
Recreational vehicles (RV) were also a significant concern with previous versions of the LUB and MDP, Willcott said, noting people in his division were not happy about the RV permitting proposed.
Dauphinee said MPS would collect feedback from the workshops and present it in a report to the county. They will then work on amendments to the LUB and MDP drafts over the summer, before presenting them to the public for another round of consultation.
She said the hope it so to finalize changes to the LUB and MDP by the end of 2018.
“The discussion was really good and so far the feedback we’ve gotten for some of the things we’re exploring was really positive,” Dauphinee said in an interview after the July 13 workshop.
