Hearing starts on City’s appeal of Rocky View County’s Conrich Area Structure Plan

A Merit Hearing with the Municipal Government Board into the City’s appeal of Rocky View County’s Conrich Area Structure Plan began at the Acclaim Hotel in Calgary Sept. 12.
“The City is currently presenting material to the Municipal Government Board panel this week,” said Mayor Patricia Matthews in an e-mailed statement.
Rocky View County will have their turn to present evidence after the city calls their last witnesses Sept. 15.
The merit hearing is required after mediation in April 2016 failed to result in an agreement between the two municipalities.
“We have raised serious concerns over the potential detrimental impacts the Conrich development will have on our residents including financial impacts, potential flooding and increased traffic which brings safety concerns,” said Matthews.
“All of these concerns have been raised in the past and might have been addressed if an IDP, a good neighbour document, were in place but since it isn’t, our best outcome is to have these addressed through the 690 appeal,” she said.
The county, which was able to settle the dispute with the city of Calgary over the Conrich plan in mediation issued a statement on the ongoing process with Chestermere.
“Rocky View County and the City of Calgary entered mediation in a spirit of openness and co-operation, which led to a successful Memorandum of Agreement between the two municipalities. The County is disappointed that mediation efforts with Chestermere did not produce similar positive results,” said Manager of Communication Services Grant Kaiser in the e-mailed statement.
Now that the appeal is being heard by the Municipal Government Board, the County said it will not be issuing any further comment.
Regardless of the appeal process, the city continues to be open to working collaboratively with Rocky View County in the future.
“We want to continue to be good neighbours but our first priority is the ‎overall well-being of our residents,” said Matthews.
The hearing is scheduled to go until Sept. 23.
Landowners who may be affected by the appeal had the opportunity to speak to the board during an evening session Sept. 19 after contacting the Municipal Government Board by e-mail at MGBMail@gov.ab.ca.
Complete copies of the documents submitted by both the city and the county to the Municipal Government Board can be found on the respective municipalities websites.