Athabasca County is set to hold several workshops in July to discuss both the county's Land-Use Bylaws (LUB), as well as the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) for this year.
The first workshop will go at the Athabasca Regional Multiplex at 5 p.m. July 13. The rest of them will go July 14 in Boyle at 10 a.m. and in Wandering River at 5 p.m., and then in Athabasca again and in Perryvale July 15 at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., respectively.
Shirley Moerman, the county's director of planning and development, said the county is heading to a revision of the documents.
"We will be asking the public's input into what they want in them," Moerman said. "We would like to know the direction in which these documents should entail."
Moerman said the county first started a draft for the new documents about a couple of years ago.
"That has kind of got paused since then," she continued. "So now, we are restarting that again to see if we can move forward on the documents, as our current ones are now 16-years-old, which makes them in dire need of an update."
She added that normally, you would only look at a six to 10 year retention of these types of documents.
"To get this update done, we are going to have a marathon weekend of discussions in July," Moerman said. "Council formally approved the dates at their June 12 meeting, and now we hope to get to as many populated areas as possible in order to get this done."
Moerman said that they have separated each workshop into four discussion areas.
"They include the Lakeshore Residential Development," she said. "They also include the areas of agriculture, hamlets, and industrial development, which includes forestry."
According to an administrative report filed to council, each workshop will take roughly three-and-a-half hours, and will include a lunch or a light supper, depending on what time the meeting takes place.
"I think it is important for the residents of this county to understand the LUB and the MDP review," Moerman said. "Residents need to know how it is going to affect them, as well as neighbouring properties. That's the whole idea of statutory plans, it determines what can happen on each assigned property when they are districted."
