Foothills County says it supports the move to make membership in a regional planning board voluntary, but has no plans to leave yet.
Starting next year, the Province said it will make membership in the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board and the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board voluntary and will no longer provide funding to the organizations.
Foothills County has been outspoken about its mandated participation on the planning board, but no decision has been made on whether the County will leave, Reeve Delilah Miller said.
“Making it voluntary, for us, puts us on a level playing field,” Miller said. “We weren’t before, because we were out-voted all the time.”
A major issue is the CMRB's growth plan that lays out densities that residential development should meet.
Miller said those guidelines fit urban Alberta, but don’t line up with the needs or wants of rural residents or government.
“We’re always having to ask for exceptions (to the growth plan), that’s how it works,” she said. “We develop differently, but we were made to feel that we’re developing wrong."
Foothills County has lobbied for changes to the mandatory membership model, and to the growth plan since it was created.
For the time being, Foothills County will wait and see. The changes don’t take effect until the new year, and Miller said they haven’t been made official by the Province.
“We all have to remain at the table and our applications will still continue to have to be submitted,” she said.
Miller said the County would like to see changes made to the growth plan to accommodate rural board members.
“If there’s no changes, Foothills County most likely will vote to leave,” Miller said.
Foothills County and Rocky View County are rural members on the board that includes Calgary, Okotoks, High River, Airdrie, Cochrane and Chestermere.
The Government of Alberta will pull its $1 million in annual funding to the CMRB, which was forecast to be about half of the board’s operating budget next year.
A statement from Ric McIver, minister of municipal affairs, said the regional boards were always intended to be self-funding, and that is why funding was approved on a year-by-year basis.
