ATHABASCA – Athabasca County councillors rejected a policy amendment that would have changed the status of five hamlets in the county after a contentious debate that revolved around the question “Why should we do this?”
During their June 20 committee of the whole meeting, Athabasca County councillors voted 4-3 against a motion to amend Policy 5205: Hamlet Status. Councillors Tracy Holland, Gary Cromwell, Kelly Chamzuk and Joe Gerlach voted against the motion, while reeve Brian Hall and councillors Ashtin Anderson and Camille Wallach were in favour while councillors Rob Minns and Natasha Kapitaniuk were absent.
The amendments would have changed the status of Breynat, Donatville, Ellscott, Meanook, and Perryvale, since they no longer meet the hamlet requirements under the Municipal Government Act (MGA).
Under the MGA, there are three requirements for incorporation as a hamlet: there must be five or more buildings used as dwellings, the majority of which are on parcels of land smaller than 1,850 square metres; there must be a generally accepted boundary and name; and they must contain parcels of land that are used for non-residential purposes.
Currently, the five communities either do not have non-residential property, do not have enough or small enough dwellings, or both.
“What is the benefit of this exercise?” asked Holland. “I had the pleasure of speaking with Municipal Affairs today. With regards to the MGA, the section is in regard to the formation. There’s nothing, and they confirmed this for me, there’s nothing that says that we need to dissolve it or change it. We aren’t going against the MGA or breaching it. I see this as a futile exercise with zero benefit to the county.”
Anderson said the benefit would be the ability to standardize the level of service amongst the county’s hamlets, which vary by a considerable margin when it comes to access to amenities and infrastructure.
“We’ve talked a lot about levels of service when it comes to land use planning, and trying to maintain and replace our assets. One of the things that we talked about was trying to set a standard level of service throughout our hamlets and our subdivisions,” said Anderson, who chairs the committee of the whole.
“That means that all hamlets would have standard levels of sidewalks, street lighting, and hopefully surfacing within their streets. That’s where this came up; I don’t know why everyone now seems to think we’re erasing history. I will never advocate for new sidewalks and streetlighting in Perryvale or Ellscott the same way I would for Grassland, Wandering River, or Rochester.”
Another argument that came up was compliance with the MGA; as Holland pointed out, there’s nothing in the MGA about dissolving hamlets, and there isn’t much precedent in the rest of the province either.
While Municipal Affairs doesn’t publish up to date census numbers for hamlets besides Fort McMurray and Sherwood Park, there are multiple hamlets that have single-digit population numbers, or, in the case three counties including Donatville, a population of zero according to the most recent data.
In a June 22 e-mail, Alberta Municipal Affairs director of communications Graeme McElheran said that while municipalities are able to change the status of hamlets, it’s normally due to a change in the land-use bylaw said McElheran.
Past examples of municipalities dissolving hamlets include Leduc County in 2015, that dissolved two, the MD of Provost in 2023 that dissolved one, and Yellowhead County in 2019, that also dissolved two.
