Sturgeon County and four of its main towns now have a new legal framework with which to manage their shared borders.
County council approved intermunicipal collaboration frameworks (ICFs) with Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal and Redwater at its March 23 council meeting. It also approved first reading of intermunicipal development plans (IDPs) and signed off on co-operative fire, bylaw and recreation cost-sharing agreements for those communities.
The Gazette will have more details on the recreation cost sharing agreements (which were worth some $2.1 million) later this month.
In 2016, the province ordered all municipalities to form ICFs with any communities with which they shared borders unless they were both members of the same growth management board (for example, the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board). The agreements were meant to get communities to work together on shared services such as water, fire and transportation. Governments originally had to have these deals in place by April 1, 2020, but that was changed to April 1, 2021, due to the pandemic.
The county’s four ICFs were largely identical and outlined how the towns and the county would share and pay for services such as fire protection, bylaw enforcement, recreation, transportation, and water. The towns and county agreed to work together to create any new joint services/buildings/projects, meet as needed through an intermunicipal committee, abide by a dispute resolution process and review these ICFs at least every four years.
Lavalle noted the county is still finalizing sub-agreements to the ICFs related to the Hwy. 28 service road near Bon Accord, Casa Vista Road near Gibbons, and Range Rd. 251 near Legal, as well as water and sewer service to Legal. These deals would have to be complete by the end of this year or be subject to the framework’s dispute resolution process.
Lavalle said Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal and Redwater expected to sign off on these ICFs later this month. Once they did, Sturgeon County would have completed 10 ICFs with its neighbours.
Related to the ICFs were the IDPs, which set out how lands outside the borders of these towns were to be developed. The province requires communities with shared borders to have IDPs unless they agree they don’t require one.
The IDPs stated the county would use the lands around the towns for agricultural purposes, and that the two governments would collaborate on any confined feedlot, oil, gas, or telecommunications developments on those lands. The plans also said that the governments were to promote broadband and communications infrastructure in these regions. Any multi-lot subdivisions over a certain size in the border regions would require area structure plans that considered environmental reserves, trails, and other details.
The IDPs return for public hearings on April 13.
Mayor Alanna Hnatiw thanked administration for the many hours of work they had put into getting these agreements right.
