Your Input Needed On Crp's Binding Land Use Plan – Open House Mar 19

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Target clarity

 

Calgary Herald

March 19, 2009

 

Re: "Public to see draft plan for sustainable region," March 14.

 

The Calgary Regional Partnership's regional draft plan is headed in the right direction, but it needs clear targets to have a chance at getting close to its impressive conceptual maps. The plan's intensification of existing settled areas by 25 per cent is a step forward, as is placing new development nodes away from agricultural lands and key watersheds. However, too much of the plan rests on the leverage of Calgary trading water rights in the hope that surrounding municipalities develop appropriately without targets. There are no provisions to limit or guide well water-serviced country residential development, which creates an enormous impact on watersheds while fragmenting large patches of undisturbed and agricultural lands.

 

The plan also lacks any procedure for addressing development's cumulative effects. A simple step would be to adopt the 45,000-hectare build-out as a hard target. The number exists only loosely in the CRP's promotional literature. Without a binding commitment, the CRP may end up building out to the 125,000 hectares it is trying to avoid. Instead of "encouraging maintenance of" ecological values, the plan needs formally stated targets such as "80 per cent of riparian areas will be maintained," or "85 per cent of existing agricultural land will remain undeveloped." This will help the CRP deliver its impressive vision.

 

There is a CRP open house March 19. For more information, go to www.calgaryregion.ca.

 

Joe Obad,

Calgary

 

Joe Obad is associate director of Water Matters.

 

© Copyright The Calgary Herald

 

Calgary Herald

 

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