WOODLANDS COUNTY – Woodlands County held a third public hearing in Fort Assiniboine to review the updated land-use bylaw based on feedback from Woodlands County Residents on July 17.
“Fort Assiniboine has had the best attendance of all of the public hearings held,” said Joshua Raposa, Planning and Development supervisor.
There have been eight changes to the Land-Use Bylaw since the last public engagement sessions.
The idea of co-operative living was not popular among Woodlands County residents, and it was removed completely from the bylaw.
Peter McKay, development officer at Woodlands County, walked the group of attendees through the details of the changes.
The adjusted number of houses allowed has changed from two to four, depending on the size of the property and how it is divided. If the land is over 40 acres, then the maximum dwellings is three.
If a landowner has two titles, say a ten-acre parcel and a 150-acre parcel, then the 10-acre residential site could have a two-dwelling density, and the 150 acres could have three lower-value density, said McKay.
All references to registering additional persons living in the homes on a land parcel have been removed and are no longer required.
“We can’t tell you who's going to live in where,” said McKay.
For example, if a parent resides with the landowner and that parent passes away, the landowner can put someone else in that house without having to apply to the County, according to McKay.
The secondary suite approach has been revised since the last engagement session in June. The secondary suite must be smaller than the primary dwelling.
Infrastructure like water access, sewage system capacity can impact the number of dwellings on a property.
McKay said they are trying to make it easier to approve landowners to have people on their land and the secondary suite options satisfy this goal.
They heard from people that they wanted questions developed for the agriculture parcels in particular, said Raposa.
People answered the survey with wanting to see the ability to have another parcel added for the kids for succession planning within their property.
Landowners can already get two homes on a parcel, so Woodlands County is making it a little bit more flexible in getting subdivisions approved.
With subdivisions for better agriculture lands two parcels per quarter section are permissible in any configuration.
Vicki Dodge addressed provincially-set agriculture classification questions on assessing agricultural parcels explaining that Woodlands County, as a municipal government, has no influence on those decisions.
Standard provincial farmland values are set by assessors who calculate the dollar per acre of that quarter section. It is based off a variety of checkpoints like type of soil, the type of land, the crop output on that land, and they take all the information to make a calculation and give a dollar value per acre.
Another change since the last public hearing is that the Land Use Bylaw allows for building a garage prior to having to build the house.
Landowners must apply for both the house and the garage at the same time. This makes it a little bit easier, and it speeds up the approval timeline.
Now there is a list of businesses that are condensed into one home automation category for commercial use on parcels.
Applications are assessed based on the number of client visits per day, and different conditions will apply to different home occupations.
For example, on a residential 10-acre parcel, if you wanted to do a mechanics business in your shop, Woodlands County would support that, but there are going to be conditions, like traffic, visitors and noise in the off-hours.
Each application is evaluated on the individual circumstances of that parcel.
There are separate guidelines for cyber and data collection businesses due to power usage and the inclusion of notifying the public regarding these applications. For example, a data collection company cannot set up business when neighbouring houses are within a certain distance.
There has been an influx of solar panel applications for an existing building. Landowners no longer require a permit for freestanding solar panels.
Permits are required to make sure that there are setbacks maintained and that the solar panel is not pointed directly at oncoming traffic.
A section of the Land Use Bylaw being considered is for tree clearing. Today, there is no regulation.
Woodlands County understands landowners don't want to go get permits to clear a pasture for cows, said Raposa
The County may put wording in the Land Use Bylaw to restrict landowners who want to do tree clearing without a reasonable goal. There are going to be some considerations like how it may affect drainage, affect the water course of that area, or affect neighbours. Flooding concerns and guidelines are included in the Land Use Bylaw.
“I am open to your thoughts on this,” said Raposa.
McKay said the County maps have also been simplified.
The Land Use Bylaw in detail, can be found at https://woodlands.ab.ca/p/land-use-bylaw
Aug. 13 is the target date for the first reading by the Woodlands County Council of the Land Use Bylaw.
