A second public hearing will be held in August for proposed amendments to the municipal development plan and the land use bylaw regarding a number of environmentally significant areas.
Mountain View County councillors passed a motion on May 23 setting the hearing in council chambers.
Areas covered by the proposed amendments include properties in the Bearberry, Bergen and Water Valley-Winchell Lake neighbourhoods.
A first public hearing was held on March 28, followed by open houses in council chambers and in Sundre on April 10 and 24 respectively.
“As part of the (recent) subdivision and development application review process, administration utilized the 2014 provincial environmentally significant areas data by Fiera Biological Consulting along with the existing 2008 ESA Summit Report data,” administration said in a briefing note to council.
“The result of the change would mean 15,798 acres out of 662,087 areas of agricultural preservation area land would now be located within the potential multi-lot residential development area.
“While this proposed change includes a large land mass becoming potentially developable, the majority of these lands are long narrow strips that may pose challenges for developing new lots within these areas and amounts to only two per cent removed from the agricultural preservation area.”
The proposed amendments are not related to rezoning properties and property assessment will continue to be agriculture if the land is currently assessed and being used for agriculture, council heard.
During the May 23 council meeting, administration presented a report on the April 10 and 24 open houses.
The report states, in part, that, “Attendance for the open house (on 24th) was greater than the April 10 open house, with approximately 60 people attending. Verbal comments varied between support or opposition to the proposed ESA changes.
“A general comment that was made by many attendees was that they supported the proposed ESA changes to the boundaries; however, the changes to the agricultural preservation area highlights concerns with equality for subdivision potential throughout the county.”
Following council’s vote to hold the second public hearing, Reeve Bruce Beattie said, “We want to make sure everybody has the opportunity to speak to the issue. We want to make sure everyone is aware of the intentions.”
The second hearing is scheduled for Aug. 22.
