The mayor doesn't think an elected board chair will work long-term for the Capital Region Board's needs. Mayor Nolan Crouse, who currently is the elected regional board chair, made the comments during a committee of the whole meeting on Monday.
The mayor doesn't think an elected board chair will work long-term for the Capital Region Board's needs.
Mayor Nolan Crouse, who currently is the elected regional board chair, made the comments during a committee of the whole meeting on Monday. Council went into the more informal format to listen to a presentation from Coun. Cathy Heron about the Capital Region Board's growth plan update.
“I really don't think that an elected board chair can also work long term. I honestly don't think, having been in this thing now for three years plus … the advocacy around the region is 100 per cent somebody's job,” Crouse said, noting it's also politically loaded and everyone on the committee and the board has another role, like mayor or councillor.
“I think it's going to be a real challenge for this to get through,” Crouse said. He also suggested the board might need a full-time economist on staff.
Heron, who is St. Albert's representative on the regional board's growth plan update committee, presented an overview of the process to council.
The growth plan update will actually be a new growth plan, Heron said. The committee found there were too many gaps in the currently used plan.
Emphasizing that the documents she was presenting were just a draft, Heron showed the early work on the plan.
That includes a “regional vision for 2064” where the Edmonton Metropolitan Region is a “dominant hub for northern Albertan” and globally recognized on a number of fronts, “anchored by a thriving core that is interconnected with diverse urban and rural communities” that is “committed to growing collaboratively through the efficient use of infrastructure, building compact communities and fostering economic opportunities and healthy lifestyles.”
There were seven draft principles to accompany that draft vision. The principles address everything from “compact growth” to “wise management of prime agricultural resources.”
Heron said one of the challenges in the capital region is the diversity of size between the member municipalities.
She did tell council that the idea of amalgamation and municipal boundaries have been taken out of the discussion, as has any talk of revenue or cost-sharing models.
The assumptions used to help develop the plan so far include a population projection of 2.2 million people in the region by 2044.
The draft plan structure has different categories: rural areas, sub-regional clusters, which is the surrounding tier of urban communities outside the core, a metropolitan core in and around Edmonton and the Metropolitan area, which includes the core and the sub-regional clusters.
Heron said they hope to have a final plan by December 2015.
She said the hope for the new plan is to move away from a “one-size fits all” approach.
“Currently, I think there's been some discomfort … because what works for downtown Edmonton doesn't work for Redwater,” Heron said.
