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St. Albert council to choose course on Edmonton regional board in January

Municipalities including St. Albert are to pass a resolution declaring their intent to stay or to go after the defunding of regional planning boards in Edmonton and Calgary.
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St. Albert city council is expected to pass a resolution declaring their intent with regard to the city's membership in the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Board (EMRB) in January, according to Mayor Cathy Heron.

Municipalities including St. Albert are to pass a resolution declaring their intent to stay or to go after the defunding of regional planning boards in Edmonton and Calgary.

Mayor Cathy Heron attended an in-camera meeting of the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Board (EMRB) Dec. 12. She said she can’t reveal much about what was said, but told the Gazette the members agreed to go back to their respective councils and work toward having them pass such a resolution in January.

She said that means St. Albert city council will address the question at their Jan. 21 meeting, the first of the year following a two-day strategy session Jan. 13 and 14.

On Nov. 22, a Friday, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs announced the cutting of the remaining $1 million of its contribution to the EMRB and the Calgary Metropolitan Regional Board (CMRB). Minister Ric McIver said membership in the regional planning entities is now also voluntary, which Heron believes could be a death knell.

“The only reason that this region is doing it is because we're mandated to by a growth plan,” Heron said earlier this month. “So now that it's going to be voluntary, there's a lot up in the air: What happens to that growth plan and all the good work we've done? We've spent millions of dollars getting to this place and time, that I feel like it's just going to be flushed down the drain now.

“I'm worried.”

The changes comes almost exactly a year after the release of a report by consultants MNP that showed the EMRB had saved the province $6.5 million since 2017.

It has also created $12 million in savings through efficiencies; for example, with an in-house modelling system that generates a regional transportation project priority list for funding consideration by the province, saving each member municipality from creating their own and eliminating potential conflicts.

But not everyone sees it that way.

The Rural Municipalities of Alberta passed resolutions calling for the dissolution of growth management boards (GMBs) such as the EMRB in November 2019.

Its members longstanding concerns with GMBs include “issues with a voting and governance structure that provides urban municipalities with a disproportionate level of control over both regional plans developed by the GMB and local planning decisions made by individual municipalities.”

The RMA recommended a rebalancing of the voting model in 2023. It said no member should be able to unilaterally pass motions or veto those of others, suggested a combination of weighted and unweighted voting used by regional districts in British Columbia and pitched a third-party review process for appeals.

Short of removing GMBs from the Municipal Government Act (MGA), the change to voluntary enrolment is a satisfactory alternative, according to a news release issued Nov. 29.

The changes also follow the recent decisions by five rural counties to leave Edmonton Global, a regional member-funded marketing agency created by the EMRB that St. Albert council voted to remain with in the first week of November.

Things are already moving to the south.

Rocky View County council voted 4-3 to withdraw from the CMRB Dec. 11 after an emergent item was added to the agenda. Foothills Reeve Delilah Miller said Dec. 13 she expects her council to do the same.

The decision comes after the CMRB rejected a Rocky View County area structure plan (ASP) in May 2023.

Three rural counties voted against the CMRB growth plan in May 2021, which passed with the support of urban members. Wheatland County and Strathmore left the CMRB a year later.

A recently passed St. Albert ASP, for the northeast, is before the EMRB for a similar ruling.

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