A new version of the MD of Foothills’ proposed Municipal Development Plan will be put out for public debate at a hearing next week.

The public hearing should include some questions as some residents say it’s a step forward but doesn’t go far enough to address concerns with the document.

MD council will hold a public hearing on a draft of the proposed new Municipal Development Plan (MDP) on June 8 at the Highwood Memorial Centre in High River.

The plan prioritizes agricultural land use and sets out new rules for how residential development will proceed in the future.

MD planner Heather Hemmingway said large country residential parcels are no longer sustainable. The document also sets out new rules for clustered development and country residential densities will remain the same, but it limits redesignating agricultural land for residential use.

“Country residential is going to continue but council, in the new MDP, has made statements that country residential development is not going to be the norm as it has been in the past,” she said.

An initial draft of the document was developed last year and presented at a public hearing in November. Many at the hearing urged council to go back to the drawing board.

Council complied and has since been working on a number of changes to the document.

The new draft removes some elements residents had opposed, such as no longer supporting dividing first parcels out from a quarter section.

It also includes a new definition of environmentally significant areas, where the landowner could require specialized studies such as biophysical assessments before development in these areas could proceed.

In the November draft, these environmentally significant areas covered much of the western portion of the MD. In the new version, they are defined as areas with characteristics or special biological attributes the MD believes to be environmentally significant.

Hemmingway said this gives council more discretion to deal with development proposals as the arise.

A proposal to dramatically change the density for country residential areas has also been removed. In November, the proposed maximum density for country residential areas was one unit per quarter section with exceptions permitted by council up to 32 units per acre.

This has been cut from the new draft and the existing maximum density of 32 units per quarter section is being retained.

Hemmingway said the November proposal was removed to avoid confusion.

“That policy was misread, it’s not what the intention of it was… it’s not what the intention of it was and it was removed,” she said.

Other controversial policies were kept in the new draft, such as encouraging people to pursue estate planning that does not lead to break up of agricultural lands.

MD resident Marelene LaMontagne said the estate planning clause should be removed from the plan.

For many landowners, she said their land is their retirement plan and the MDP will only serve to devalue their properties.

LaMontagne said current practices allow landowners to split off less productive portions of their land to sell or develop, but the new plan will limit landowners’ abilities to subdivide their property.

“It is going to be detrimental to those people who have larger acreages,” she said.

MD resident and former councillor Pat Stier said clustered developments will serve a good purpose in some areas, but he is concerned land set aside for conservation in these areas will in essence be frozen.

“I’m not really enamored with the cluster idea at all because it’s going to freeze a lot of land,” he said. “Who’s going to want to buy that remaining piece off you?”

Stier said one of the most significant changes is the removal of an existing policy allowing council to subdivide a parcel of five acres or more from agricultural sites of more than 21 acres. Stier said this policy provides an option to allow subdivisions on land with poor agricultural value.

Hemmingway said this policy is not in the draft MDP because it’s counter to the direction towards smaller residential parcel sizes and less fragmentation of agricultural land.

She said the MDP will still allow people to create country residential lots from agricultural land, but it’s not supportive of the practice.

Hemmingway said balance lands in clustered developments can still be privately owned for different uses, but they cannot be further subdivided.

She said any potential use for those areas would be dealt with in development applications, not in the MDP.

“We didn’t dictate how that would happen, we felt the development industry would like a lot of options available to them and they would chose the one that’s best for them,” said Hemmingway.

Not all are opposed to the plan.

Francis Jackson Dover, Priddis Millarville Residents Association president, said many of the changes don’t alter the document much and balance residents’ concerns with the need to conserve land in the foothills.

“I think it allows the council, the MD flexibility,” she said.

Jackson Dover supported the previous draft saying it was a good “green” step forward.

She said the changes to the definition of environmental significant areas have softened it, but still gives council latitude on the issue.

She supports promoting clustered development and said landowners won’t lose out from conserving a portion of land against future development because they will still benefit from the development.

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