Sturgeon County residents can check out plans for the lands around Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal, and Redwater this month.
County council approved first reading of intermunicipal development plans (IDPs) for those four communities Feb. 11.
IDPs are statutory documents between municipalities that share a common border meant to co-ordinate development along said border.
Under provincial law, IDPs are required between municipalities that share a border and are not part of the same regional growth board unless both communities agree not to do one. Sturgeon County stopped work on IDPs with the counties of Barrhead, Lac Ste. Anne, Thorhild, and Lamont in January with their consent, but kept working on ones with Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal, and Redwater.
While the county has many informal agreements with these communities, this is the first time it’s pursued IDPs with them, Mayor Alanna Hnatiw said in an interview. These documents will formalize current arrangements and give both communities space to find ways to share services.
The four agreements are pretty similar, apart from the specific land uses set out in them (which largely reflect conditions on the ground today).
Each sets out a roughly 1.6 km zone outside the town’s borders that the two governments agree to manage jointly. Both parties will refer plans or proposals that affect these lands to each other for comment and review and will develop these areas to the benefit of both communities. Both governments are to explore cost-sharing agreements, keep these areas mostly agricultural, and not allow any new or expanded confined feeding operations in these zones.
These IDPs will be reviewed every four years. The plans can be repealed with 30 days notice, but must be replaced immediately.
Hnatiw encouraged residents to come out to open houses on the IDPs at the Bon Accord, Gibbons, Legal, and Redwater town offices to see how they would affect them. The Bon Accord and Legal open houses are Feb. 24, while the ones for Gibbons and Redwater are Feb. 25.
The province has set an April 1, 2020, deadline for the county to complete these IDPs. It also has until then to sign intermunicipal collaboration frameworks with these communities. Drafts of the IDPs can be found in the agenda package for the Feb. 11 council meeting.
Road upgrades
County council is putting some $5 million in spare change towards upgrades to Starkey and Roseridge roads.
Council approved $5,460,000 in spending Feb. 11 to upgrade parts of Starkey Road and Roseridge Road this year. The cash comes from a higher-than-expected Municipal Sustainability Initiative grant and money left over from projects that came in under budget last year.
North Starkey Road south of Hwy. 37 is one of the county’s busiest roads, with about 1,880 cars travelling it each day, council heard. A chunk of it is covered in cold mix, which is a lower-grade oil/gravel mix not meant for long-term use.
“This is our most heavily called-on road from a maintenance perspective,” chief operating officer Scott MacDougall said, and repair costs are expected to rise exponentially if the road isn’t upgraded. Its south-side intersection at Sturgeon Road has also been the sight of many close calls for collisions.
Roseridge Road was a gravel road and an essential link to the Roseridge Landfill, and saw close to 600 cars a day, council heard.
The plan was to upgrade about 2 km of North Starkey and 1.4 km of Roseridge to hard pavement and to add a concrete island to the southbound left-hand-turn lane at Starkey and Sturgeon to make it safer.
Coun. Dan Derouin approved of the latter change, saying that intersection was a hot spot for collisions.
“There’s not a day that goes by where there’s not a near-miss that happens there.”
These projects are set for completion later this year.
