Over the last couple weeks, there has been some rumour and speculation that the City of Chestermere had in place for the annexation of 25 000 plus acres of land that is currently under Rocky View County jurisdiction. On December 16th 2015 that rumour was confirmed when information was brought forward from a few sources that wish to remain unnamed. Upon contacting Mayor Matthews, she did confirm that the City of Chestermere has submitted a letter to the Minister of Municipal Affairs requesting annexation of over 25,000 acres of land.
To some, this may seem like a quick decision and coming out of nowhere, but the history on the development of this land goes back six years. The City of Chestermere and Rocky View County (RVC) have been going around and around for six years with no progress made on the best direction to take with these lands. “We have done everything we can to work with Rocky View County even up to recently offering to go through a mediation process, but they chose not to participate in that so we have no other choice. We have done everything we possibly can”, said Mayor Matthews. “We spent over 18 months sitting at a table, with them (RVC) with Intermunicipal committee meetings saying that we have concerns about how this is getting put together only to be told ‘this really isn’t your concern'”.
“This move to annex these lands is in an effort to control our own density. They (RVC) are effectively boxing in our entire region with bad development”, commented Mayor Matthews, “they do bad planning”.
Matthews went on to explain “our intention is not to develop this – we are not looking to set up mass development tomorrow. This is a jurisdictional defensive move because the development that Rocky View is purposing in Conrich is bad for our residents. They are purposing industrial and commercial three times the size of Balzac directly across the road from us. They have no serving plan for it. They have no storm water plan for it. They have no interchange road connection for it. On top of that, they will have the population in there roughly the size of a city. Where are those people going to school? Where are they going to get their services from? Where are they coming for community services? Who’s going to put out their fires? Who’s going to police them? Who’s going to call our bylaw officers when they have dogs running around? They (RVC) have bad planning”.
“They (RVC) sat in a public hearing and said ‘anyone with concept plan could go ahead and start building’. That’s why we’re doing this”, added Matthews.
In their own media release on Friday December 18th, Rocky View County states, “We’ve become aware of a letter sent by Chestermere to the Provincial Minister of Municipal Affairs, although Chestermere did not copy us on that letter,” says Rocky View County Reeve Greg Boehlke. “Despite this lack of regional co-operation and basic respect, we now have some details, and what we’re seeing greatly concerns us.”
“The appeal to the Minister is a direct attempt to circumvent the normal processes of the Municipal Government Act. Although we haven’t been able to study the specifics, we believe this is an ongoing attempt by Chestermere to hobble the County’s economic development in order to build up their own underperforming business and commercial tax base. It’s not about land”, Boehlke continued.
The City of Chestermere sent Rocky View County a copy of the letter they submitted to the Minister of Municipal Affairs on December 14th and on December 15th, RVC sent a letter back to the City of Chestermere accusing them of trying to ‘circumvent the intended processes of the Municipal Government Act”. RVC went on to request that the City of Chestermere withdraw their request to the Minister or they intend of requesting the Minister view Chestermere’s approach as an abuse of process and highly inappropriate.
We reached out to some residents that are on rural acreages and although they are not 100% happy with the way that Rocky View County operates and has done some planning, these residents also do not want to become the City of Chestermere.
Resident Bev Brand told us, “I am on Jesse Trail. We are just west of RR275 between TWP240 and Glenmore. I feel there is no benefit at all. All we can expect is higher taxes. I expect the limited services we receive from the MD currently would deteriorate if we became part of Chestermere. MD of Rockyview takes care of our snow removal within 48 hours, usually before all of Chestermere has been plowed. Chestermere has nothing to offer us. While I have not yet had the opportunity to speak to my neighbors I am pretty confident they also would be opposed. I would be curious to hear from the acreages that were involved in the last annexation to hear how it affected them”.
Jennifer Zambory also said, “I’m on Tr240, east of 791, well within the proposed annexation. I have no idea how this annexation would work, but I live here to have a rural style of life and to keep livestock, and I absolutely do not want to lose that by being swallowed up by a land greedy city. I’m sure being within Chestermere won’t bring us any services – it’s a water well and septic system here and no cable or Shaw or wired internet services. The only plus is maybe we can hold out and sell the land for more money and move farther away”.
It is highly unlikely that the Minister of Municipal Affairs is just going to hand this land over to the City of Chestermere, which Mayor Matthews did acknowledge. “The purpose of this was just to freeze development so that we have some more time to work on this with RVC before there is bad development in place”.
