The Town of Westlock and Westlock County are making headway on their shared intermunicipal development plan (IDP) and presented a draft document for the public to view and comment on last week.
The two municipalities held a joint open house Oct. 2 in town council chambers, where they presented the draft IDP to the public, asking for comments and feedback.
Councillors were joined by representatives from V3 Companies, the planning firm contracted to create the IDP, including planner Nick Pryce.
The IDP covers growth and land use, economic development, environmental matters, transportation and utilities, and programs and services within the area of shared boundaries between the town and the county. Since this is a long-term document, the IDP plan boundary (or IDP map) is a reflection of growth projections in the area in terms of population and land use.
“It’s a policy document that creates a framework to enable the councils to work together under their policy initiative. For example, there might be a policy that both municipalities look at doing a master stormwater plan,” said Pryce.
“We’re not doing that today, but it might happen, and they might start looking at that and say ‘Let’s talk about how much money it’s going to cost and what area is it going to cover.’ They’ll put it out probably to a consultant who can come and do the analysis to plan that. When the plan is in place, from that it could be — and this is all long-term — how do we start developing the plan,”
The policy outlined in the IDP is thus the start of any planning process between the town and the county.
“It’s a long-term document … of how the two municipalities, around their boundaries, work together. Particularly it could just be about natural land use on one side of the boundary, it could be about future roads, … construction standards, utility services, stormwater management,” said Pryce.
He clarified that what’s included in the document is a layout of the joint priorities between the two municipalities at their shared borders, creating an agenda for the two moving forward.
“You provide a framework where you agree that this is how we’re going to do it together,” added county CAO Leo Ludwig.
When V3 planners first began working on the town-county IDP, they brought the two councils together to discuss their own priorities, which are inextricably linked to each municipality’s budget and pressing concerns.
Since the document lays out a long-term agenda, priorities are differentiated using languages like shall/should/may.
“‘Shall’ indicates that actions are mandatory. ‘Should’ indicates direction to strive to achieve the outlined action but is not mandatory. ‘May’ is discretionary, meaning the policy in question can be implemented if the municipalities choose to do so. This is typically dependent on context and individual circumstances,” according to the draft IDP.
Pryce explained that the use of ‘shall’ in the document is mostly related to admin and referral procedures mandated under the Municipal Government Act.
For example, under the new act, the two councils have to meet at least once yearly. In areas covered by the IDP map, the two municipalities are also mandated to “share applications for subdivisions creating more than five vacant lots,” states the document.
“The ‘should’ is saying “these are things we want to do,” but we have to make sure the town and the county both have the budget available to do them. The ‘may’ is more saying these are longer term. At this point we want to focus on the ‘should,’” said Pryce.
Under growth and land use, for example, the municipalities agreed that encouraging commercial development along Highways 44 and Highway 18 (should) was a more pressing matter than developing the lands adjacent to the Westlock Municipal Airport to promote its commercial capabilities (may).
Ludwig explained that the councils went into the IDP meetings with a “blank sheet,” waiting to have the conversation before laying out priorities.
“When the councils went through the process, some of the policy items that they thought, at a high level, “we should talk about this,” were included in the document, said town interim CAO Simone Wiley, who added that it does not mean that the councils necessarily will or have to do so.
“Generally, for the town, the IDP is about communication. It’s the first step, in my opinion, of starting to get that good communication between the town and the county. It’s our initial step,” she said.
Wiley explained that they hope to have the draft pass in November in a joint council meeting. Next, the two municipalities will continue discussions on the intermunicipal collaboration framework. The provincial deadline for adopting IDPs and ICFs is April 1, 2020.
“The intermunicipal collaboration framework is actually a document that relates to agreements between the municipalities on shared services. That could be fire services … another example could be family services. The other part of the ICF, it can’t be doctored until the IDP is complete. The reason for that is there may be policy here that leads to potential future services and future agreements from a financial point of view as they move into that document,” explained Pryce.
