Alberta's Land-use Framework has advanced significantly in the last several months with new legislation (Alberta Land Stewardship Act), the initiation of two regional planning processes, and the passing of the Calgary Metropolitan Plan as a future sub-regional plan.

Lower Athabasca Regional Plan

Some encouraging elements in the Draft Terms of Reference

The Lower Athabasca Regional Planning Process kicked off in December 2008 with the announcement of its Regional Advisory Council (RAC). However, the RAC's work was delayed significantly because provincial government Cabinet took several months to provide the Lower Athabasca RAC with its Terms of Reference. Officially, the Terms of Reference (ToR) need to be passed, however, the Lower Athabasca RAC has been told to operate with the draft terms of reference in the short term.

A summary of the Terms of Reference provided by one of the members of the Regional Advisory Committee includes a number of encouraging elements. The draft ToR commits to setting thresholds to manage the cumulative effects of development. To achieve this goal the RAC is empowered to explore implementation of conservation areas.

Key criteria for establishing conservation areas include the following:

• Areas with little or no industrial development
• Areas that support Aboriginal traditional uses
• Areas that are representative of the biological diversity of the area
• Areas of sufficient size (4000-5000 sq km)

The conservation areas should also provide landscape connectivity. To move beyond status quo, a scenario of 20 percent of the boreal forest will be used to test the implications of expanding the amount of conserved land.

As impressive as the conservation areas may sound, optimism should be tempered with caution. The ToR also asks the RAC to integrate and achieve — not hinder — the GOA's economic, social and environmental objectives over the long term. While the ToR empowers the RAC to recommend trade-offs, the signal not to hinder economic goals may mean trade-offs will favor development over to the environment.

In addition to the ToR, the government added representatives for seats assigned to First Nations at the RAC. Dr. Marc Stevenson will represent Treaty 6, and Roy Vermillion, chief executive officer of the Athabasca Tribal Council will represent Treaty 8 joined the RAC. The other members of the RAC for the Lower Athabasca process are listed on the Alberta Land-use Frameworks site.

South Saskatchewan Regional Planning Process

The South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP) process is under way in earnest after several delays. The RAC for the SSRP was announced on May 13^th, 2009. No Terms of Reference are publicly available yet for the SSRP.

Sub-Regional Plans

Under the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, regional plans for the greater Calgary and Greater Edmonton areas may be adopted as a portion of the larger regional plan. The Calgary Metropolitan Plan (CMP) would become part of the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan. The Capital Regional Plan would become part of the future North Saskatchewan Regional Plan.

In theory, this sounds reasonable, but reconciling these metropolitan plans with larger regional plans will be challenging. Neither plan has proceeded with a clear understanding of the goals of the regional plans each will fall under.

On June 19^th, the Calgary Regional Partnership voted to accept the CMP despite the unclear path ahead for integration with the SSRP. The MDs of Rocky View, MD of Foothills and Wheatland County have expressed strong reservations about the plan. Like all members they have 90 days to consider their membership in the plan and the Calgary Regional Partnership.

The adopted Calgary Metropolitan Plan will now be forwarded to the Province for its consideration for adoption under the Municipal Government Act and/or the Land Stewardship Act; while members have 90 days to consider their membership in the Plan and the Partnership.

Sources

Calgary Regional Partnership, Calgary Regional Partnership Members vote to support Calgary Metropolitan Plan, news release, June 19^th, 2009 (accessed July 9^th, 2009).

Government of Alberta, Treaty 6 and Treaty 8 take seats on Lower Athabasca Regional Advisory Council, news release, July 1, 2009 (accessed July 8^th).

Government of Alberta, Treaty 6 and Treaty 8 take seats on Lower Athabasca Regional Advisory Council, news release, May 13^th, 2009 (accessed July 8^th).

Government of Alberta. 2009. Alberta Land Stewardship Act. Government of Alberta, Edmonton. 2009. (accessed July 9^th, 2009).