WOODLANDS - After an eight-year slog, Woodlands County councillors approved its Municipal Development Plan (MDP) at their April 24 meeting in Whitecourt.
Whitecourt West Coun. John Burrows was opposed, and councillors Peter Kuelken and Bruce Prestidge were absent.
A municipal development plan (MDP) is a high-level land-use and community-planning document providing broad direction for councils in guiding future development.
Councillors gave the bylaw its first reading on January 31 and its second on April 15, with Burrows and Kuelken opposed and Whitecourt East Coun. Jeremy Wilhelm was absent.
Revising the MDP, first drafted in 2013, has been a long time coming. Initial work started late in 2016 but stopped for many reasons, including county staff retirements, the arbitration process with the Town of Whitecourt, internal corporate restructuring, the county's economic recovery plan, and the pandemic.
Work on the plan resumed sometime in 2022, with initial public engagement sessions in June 2022 and November 2023. Following first reading, public hearings were scheduled for both Fort Assiniboine and Whitecourt on Feb. 27 and 28. Council also scheduled an additional March 27 public hearing at the Whitecourt municipal office.
Community and planning services manager Joan Slootweg stated that administration staff sent copies of the draft bylaw to surrounding municipalities, school districts, Indigenous stakeholders, and relevant provincial government agencies following first reading.
Wilhelm asked Slootweg what comments the municipality received from the Town of Whitecourt.
Slootweg replied that most of the comments they received from Whitecourt related more to the upcoming intermunicipal development plan (IDP) and would be addressed during those discussions.
She said the others involved minor policy amendments, and administration staff included their recommendations in the present draft.
Burrows said he still had misgivings about the document and added that more discussions were needed, especially regarding development in a flood plain.
"In about 2014, the province remapped some of the floodplains and included some areas that were not previously," he said. "When we look at documents that say there is no development in a floodplain, it puts [residents who had land previously not included in a floodplain] in a difficult position."
He used the example of someone with a mobile home.
"They can't replace it, and they are still on the hook for the mortgage, and there is no redevelopment unless they come up seven metres on the property," Burrows said. "We need to discuss more how this will work through the county before we pass this. Campgrounds are going to get caught up in this trying to re-develop that are now in the fringe area of the floodplain."
Slootweg replied the MDP is a "high-level document" and that type of specificity governing development is in other documents, such as the land-use bylaw.
"[There are sections] in our land-use bylaw that indicate development is prohibited in a flood area unless there is flood hazard mapping; in this case, you can develop accordingly in fringe areas with engineered design guidelines. Those are the types of conversations we will have when we review our land-use bylaw."
Burrows said that while he understands that the land-use bylaw governs those types of specifics, he noted that the land-use bylaw and MDP are "dovetailed." He added that he needed to see the "big picture" and how the documents fit and work together before he could vote for the MDP.
"As a councillor, see that whole picture, and that is what makes it difficult for me right now," Burrows said.
Red Willow consultant Vicki Dodge interjected that the MDP doesn't prohibit development, citing Section 3.1.12, which states: The County shall not permit any permanent structures within the 1:100-year flood hazard of any river, stream or lake shore unless flood proofing techniques are applied as recommended by a qualified professional in a supporting technical analysis report, such as a geotechnical assessment or hydrogeological assessment report.
"[This and other sections of the MDP] do not prohibit development in flood-risk or flood-hazard areas; it just says that if you are going to develop in those areas, you need to have some analysis done on how you are going to support a more flood-proof structure."
Wilhelm interjected and said those clauses in the MDP refer to new development but asked what would happen to existing development, which is now included in the floodplain.
"Is there a grandfather clause in the land-use bylaw that would mitigate those issues?"
Slootweg replied that council approved a provision in the land-use bylaw in 2017 that allows residents to replace an existing residence and an additional accessory structure in the floodplain hazard area if it is destroyed beyond 75 per cent.
"It does require that the appropriate engineering is done to ensure it can withstand it if it is ever flooded again," she added.
Burrows then asked if there was any harm in delaying approving the MDP for another six months until he and other councillors better understood its relationship to the land-use bylaw.
"It's been in place for 13 years already," he said.
Dodge said no, adding that technically, the MDP did not have to "comply" with the land-use bylaw.
"It is a good idea for them to dovetail, but they don't have to," she said. "There also is nothing in the MDP that would prohibit having the more wholesome discussion you want to have in the appropriate document, which is the land-use bylaw ... Nothing that you implement or talk about in the land-use bylaw is going to make you necessarily change anything in the MDP because it is that higher-level document."
