Sturgeon County may seek to leave the Edmonton region’s growth planning board now that the board has shot down its plans for the Villeneuve Airport region.
The Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board (EMRB) rejected Sturgeon County’s area structure plan for the Villeneuve Airport area April 13 in a 7-6 vote, with Beaumont, Edmonton, Fort Saskatchewan, Leduc, St. Albert, and Stony Plain opposed.
The EMRB is the province’s growth management board for the 13 major communities in the Edmonton region. Those communities must submit area structure plans to the board for approval before they can be implemented. Motions at the board must have support from at least nine members representing two-thirds of the region’s population to pass.
In an interview, Sturgeon County Mayor Alanna Hnatiw said she was disappointed by the board’s decision, as the county had put five years of effort into this proposal.
“For some, the area structure plan’s opportunities were beyond their comfort level, and for others it seems it was beyond their comprehension level,” she said.
While she supported development around Villeneuve Airport, St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron said she opposed the county’s proposal because it was too vague and did not align with the board’s regional growth plan.
“It’s not driving away investment,” Heron said of the decision, noting that the airport region did not currently have the infrastructure needed to support major development.
“There’s a significant amount of infrastructure that’s going to be required before you’re going to see the final vision of this (proposal), and all of that can still happen.”
Board debate
Sturgeon County had proposed to plan industrial and commercial developments around Villeneuve Airport based on aerospace, green technology, agricultural innovation, and logistics. These developments were projected to create about 1,766 full-time jobs and about $1.8 billion in cumulative economic impact after 20 years, but would require some $370 million in infrastructure upgrades.
This plan will help address pressing problems facing Alberta today such as supply chain issues, pilot shortages, and the energy transition, Hnatiw told the board.
“Supporting this (plan) is saying yes to a plan to bring billions in growth to the area.”
The main sticking point for the proposal at the board involved major employment areas. The board’s growth plan identifies 18 of these areas, one which is Villeneuve Airport (which is under federal, not Sturgeon County, control), and aims to concentrate employment growth in these areas.
EMRB administration argued this proposal created a new major employment area outside the airport, which was not contemplated under the growth plan. Sturgeon County argued this was not the case, and that its proposal simply flipped land from within the airport’s employment area to next to it (where the county would have authority to plan its development).
“A plan that was made over a decade ago cannot possibly predict the challenges we are facing today or even tomorrow,” Hnatiw said.
Parkland County Mayor Allan Gamble said the growth plan’s outlines for major employment areas were conceptual and should be updated if needed.
“We need to be able to move at the speed of business,” he said.
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said that while he supported the county's economic development efforts, it was imperative those efforts align with the region's growth plan, and this proposal did not do so. He said he would support discussions of this proposal if the county had a investor waiting to move into this region or if the issue around major employment areas was resolved.
Heron said the board should change its growth plan to allow for the creation of new major employment areas before it considered this proposal. She filed a notice of motion to draft proposals to do so as part of the growth plan’s five-year review, which was set to wrap up in 2024.
Time to leave?
The board’s decision means that Sturgeon County cannot proceed with its proposal for the Villeneuve region and must wait at least a year before bringing it back to the board for reconsideration.
In an interview, Hnatiw said the county was now considering its options, which could include a request to the province to leave the EMRB so it could pursue this proposal. A similar situation recently happened with Wheatland County and the Calgary Metropolitan Regional Board, she noted.
“I would prefer to do planning as part of the board,” she said, but the county might not have that option here.
Hnatiw said EMRB members were to meet Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Rebecca Schulz to discuss these and other matters on April 20.
