Friends of Leduc
Area Greenspace
UPDATE
October
8, 2007: The public hearing regarding the fourth draft
of the land use bylaw occurred last Wednesday.
It was well attended by the public, the vast majority of whom spoke out
against the draft land use bylaw. Due to
this AND the fact that the Municipal Government Act requirements for public
hearing advertising had NOT been met, Leduc County Council indicated that this
fourth draft shall again be returned for administration for yet another round
of rework. This should be formalized in
the council meeting to occur on October 9, 2007. FLAG calls for a real rework this time,
instead of the cosmetic changes made over the last four drafts. Perhaps it is time to hire an experienced
consultant to do the job? Parkland
County
recently created a very well thought out Municipal Development Plan with lots
of opportunity for public input—perhaps the consultant they used is available?
Below
is our content as it was prior to the October 3, 2007
public hearing. If the draft land use
bylaw version five (not released yet and no ETA announced) undergoes the same
purely cosmetic changes as the prior four drafts, our below content will stand!
Thanks
for coming to our website. Our goal is to educate Leduc
County
and surrounding area residents about a drastic land use bylaw change that is
soon going to Leduc County Council for approval. The draft land use bylaw
proposes to abolish both the Wildlife Habitat land use designation and the
Recreation Open Space land use designation.
Each of these currently protects thousands of acres of environmentally
sensitive land from incompatible and destructive development, like gravel and
sand pits. Leduc County proposes to
replace these land use designations with a modified Agricultural land use
designation, a new North Saskatchewan River Valley land use designation, and a
modified Lake Watershed land use designation, all three of which have a smattering of permitted and
discretionary uses within them—notably including Natural Resource
Extraction. This means that the September 2007 Draft Land
Use Bylaw does NOT HAVE ANY land use designation that has been designed
specifically to protect the land for future generations. Due to the vast number of uses that are
permitted or discretionary almost throughout the entire county and no requirement
to involve anyone else in decision processes, the fourth draft of the land use
bylaw also allows, for example, a gravel pit to appear almost anywhere within
Leduc County without requiring input from the general public, Council, or even
nearby landholders—the planning department becomes empowered to basically do as
they will. Although a few cosmetic changes have been done in
this fourth draft of the land use bylaw, this version remains basically the
same as the third draft which was released in May of 2007. The Friends of Leduc Area Greenspace
are terribly disappointed that none of our over 25 specific recommendations to
improve the May 2007 draft were accepted.
FLAG
calls upon Leduc County Council to return the Draft Land Use Bylaw to Leduc
County
administration for an overhaul in regards to the handling of environmentally
sensitive areas. Environmentally sensitive areas need to continue to be a
protected land use district, as they are now under the Wildlife Habitat land
use district. The environmental overhaul needs to be done in cooperation
with such environmental stakeholders as the residents of Leduc
County,
Leduc
County’s
own Environmental Committee, the Alberta Wildlife Federation, and the North
Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance. View the written statement we submitted to Leduc
County Council September 26, 2007 by clicking here To assist as best we can with this process, FLAG has written specific
recommendations for changes to the May 2007 draft Land Use Bylaw—ALL of them
still apply fully to the September 2007 draft.
Read the executive summary for a quick two pager by clicking
here, or see the complete text of all our recommendations by clicking
here.
FLAG
is also concerned with the arbitrary nature and timing of this initiative.
The entire process of public notification & public hearing has been timed
to occur in a span of barely over two weeks (which started with the release of
the fourth draft on September
19, 2007 and ends with a public hearing
on October
3, 2007). This draft, to the best of our knowledge, has
again been developed without direct input from Leduc County stakeholders.
The issues found in
earlier drafts remain in this fourth draft. Please see our August 2006
Statement of Position, available by clicking here or below, for
more detail. If you agree with our
mandate, we need to hear from you-- whether you contact us to simply express agreement,
or want to volunteer to help out. If you are thinking of volunteering, we
won’t need much of your time & the reward will pay off for decades to
come—you will know that you helped preserve Greenspace
in Leduc
County
for your family, friends, neighbors, and the generations to come!
On
August
28, 2006 we released a
solutions-oriented document containing our recommendations for how to improve
the draft land use bylaw. Read it by
clicking here for a PDF version. NONE of our recommendations have been
taken and put in place in the May 2007 draft.
Email: flag@kanotech.com (monitored daily)
Phone: 780-906-2888 (9AM to 5PM Monday to Friday, Mountain Standard Time)
Web address: www.kanotech.com/flag
Download the Petition by clicking here
Click here to go to the Leduc County website page
where the Draft Land Use Bylaw and Map are posted
From the media?
View our September 26, 2007 press release by
clicking here
View the written statement we submitted to Leduc
County Council September 26, 2007 by clicking here
Archives:
View our June 12, 2007 press release by clicking
here
View our August 28, 2006 press release by clicking
here
Download the August 28, 2006 Recommendations for
Changes to the Draft Land Use Bylaw
View our August 8, 2006 press release by clicking
here.
Click here to download our still valid August 2006
Statement of Position (PDF format, 300K) [best formatting, download
time 2-3 minutes for dial up]
View the still valid August 2006 Statement of Position as a Web Page by
clicking here (Dialup loading time 2-3 minutes)
September 2005 Press Release
September 2005 Statement of Position as web page (load time 2-3
minutes for dial up)
September
2005 Statement of Position as PDF file (best
formatting, download time 2-3 minutes for dial up)
Software You May Need:
Adobe Acrobat
Reader is a free viewer for PDF files, which we have produced our
Statement of Position in. The PDF format allows us to deliver a well
formatted document to you regardless of what word processing software and
printer you have. Click here to go
to Adobe’s website and download the free PDF viewer if you don’t
already have it (if you have it, clicking on any of our PDF links will open the
document instead of asking you how you want to view them.)
Please keep your eye on this website - we'll
try to keep you posted of developments as they occur.
_____________________________________________________________
Friends of Leduc
Area Greenspace is a non-profit organization with membership
throughout Leduc
County, Alberta and surrounding area. FLAG is operated
100% by volunteers, thus we appreciate your patience when attempting to contact
us—we will make every effort to get back to you on a timely basis.
Email and web hosting services have
been donated by Kanotech Information Systems Ltd. ( www.kanotech.com )