Medicine Hat Mayor Linnsie Clark, Redcliff Mayor Dwight Kilpatrick and Cypress County Reeve Dan Hamilton discuss proposed update to regional planning agreements on Thursday afternoon in Dunmore. -- News Photo Collin Gallant
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Potential changes to a regional planning agreement around Medicine Hat could allow more acreages south of the city and would trim the edges off areas of common interest to partners, including the Town of Redcliff and Cypress County.
The three municipalities unveiled a proposed update to the Tri-Area Municipal Development Plan in Dunmore on Thursday. It shows altered boundaries for where the city, county and town have the right to challenge certain types of development in the hopes of co-ordinating growth between the three.
That includes the potential for Cypress County to approve subdivisions while keeping in place a low-density zone nearest Medicine Hat, where future urban planning could be done with a cleaner slate.
Last spring, Cypress County made overtures that they were considering pulling out of a separate intermunicipal working group.
Cypress County Reeve Dan Hamilton said Thursday that “shaking the tree” produced results.
“We’ve encouraged updates to the plans and we’re glad that our teams (of planners) have come together for the region,” he said of the proposal.
The changes will be detailed at an open house at the Desert Blume Golf clubhouse on Oct. 3. Information and public feedback options are now advertised on the city’s website.
A final draft would go before a public hearing held jointly by all three municipalities and require passage by all three local governments.
Medicine Hat Mayor Linnsie Clark said the overall agreement will provide “sustained success for years to come.”
“We have to work together and this was one of the areas where we took a difficult situation, and through some tough conversations and collaboration, resolved the problem,” Clark told reporters later. “The proposed update, we believe, meets the needs of all three municipalities. It’s a great step forward.”
The agreement was struck in 2009 and was most recently updated in 2020.
During the process in 2020, some rural landowners between S. Boundary Road and Township Road 120 complained the city was blocking off too much land as a potential growth zone and therefore limiting their ability to develop or sell portions of parcels for acreages or small rural subdivisions.
Now, 17 quarter-sections adjacent in the mile south of city limits would see proposals restricted, though 19 more quarter-sections in an east-to-west pattern would be opened up.
Farmland closest to Township Road 120 would still be outlined as a commercial and industrial growth zone for Cypress County,
City planning official Tom Nestor told reporters that current land inventory in Medicine Hat would be enough to supply new housing needs until 2050 or longer.
But, the next logical step would be to add parcels adjacent to the city’s southern limits for new communities.
That would be more difficult with acreage development, while servicing could be more efficiently planned when the land is needed.
“We want to avoid fragmentation of land,” he said.
Among other changes, the 2020 boundaries essentially followed a long-proposed Highway 1 realignment that would create a ring-road to the south of the city from Dunmore to past Redcliff.
The partners have no expectation that will happen even in the medium term – though Highway 3 realignment is under discussion – and the new IDP zone boundaries reflects property lines, not the ring-road proposal.
It also makes the eastern boundary essentially at Highway 41, rather than one mile further east, and adds three quarter-sections to a future commercial growth area for the Town of Redcliff.
“With regional growth and regional pulls, everybody wants a piece of the action,” said Redcliff Mayor Dwight Kilpatrick. “It allows Cypress County some growth node that were restricted in the past … for Redcliff there’s some changes that will benefit the town, too. We hope the changes incorporated will assist future development and create a better go-forward plan for everybody in this region of three partners.”
That northern portion abuts a nine-section area of joint-interest where substantial industrial development proposals could occur.
As well, three sections of land along Highway 3 near the city’s southwest, which was controversially designated a greenhouse alley in 2020, is now described as an agri-industrial corridor.
