The Calgary Metropolitan Regional Board (CMRB) is working to create a water roadmap to proactively plan for a drought in 2024, according to their Dec. 18 presentation to Airdrie council.
Jordon Copping, CMRB’s chief officer, said water in the region is scarce and reports from Alberta Environment predict a drought year ahead.
The water roadmap includes long-term planning on how to address stewardship of water resources. Opportunities to collaborate within the region will be brought to the board in Q1.
“I’m so thrilled the water conversation is happening and trying to create that one voice approach to talking about water to residents,” said deputy mayor Tina Petrow. “Because it is very confusing with a lot of our residents working in Calgary and doing other stuff in Calgary if we’re not aligned with them.”
The CMRB presented its current initiatives and work coming down the pike in the new year during Airdrie’s final council meeting of 2023.
Copping touched on five initiatives, starting with the completion of the digitization of existing and approved land use.
“What this allows for us is to see what is actually on the landscape,” said Copping. “It allows for planners and developers and academics to use this data. It is part of our open platform.”
This initiative shows what’s on the land, what’s approved to be built, and allows for better coordination on land use decisions, he added.
Another initiative included the completion of the Regional Economic Development Vision and Framework.
Interviews with municipal administrations came to an end recently and were meant to create dialogue around determining the municipal economic development efforts across the region, finalizing a structure for Collaborate Regional Economic Development, and defining ‘tier 1’ opportunities.
“The board was clear that they want to collaborate on bringing tier 1 opportunities to the region,” Copping said. “Everyone knows a tier 1 opportunity when they see it but nobody can fully explain what it is. So part of this work is to define it so that when we collaborate as a region we know what we’re collaborating on.”
Copping then touched on the Indigenous relations initiative. CMRB is involved in ongoing dialogue through organized meetings with Indigenous Nations to learn about their history and experiences.
“We did recently approve the Additions to Reserve Framework,” Copping said.
“As member municipalities see an application for an indigenous nation to add land to the reserve, this gives a framework on how to work together.”
Copping mentioned that the Stories of the Land pilot project will provide a way to highlight areas of significance to indigenous people within the CMRB region.
Copping said CMRB’s role is to be a facilitator for the various Joint Planning Areas (JPA), and has had to do very little for JPA 1, of which Airdrie is a member.
“Airdrie, Rocky View County, and the City of Calgary have been very gung-ho among member municipalities and elected officials in terms of advancing this work,” Copping said.
The final initiative mentioned focused on environmentally sensitive areas.
CMRB created a database of environmentally sensitive areas set to be completed in Q1 of 2024.
Copping then mentioned the regional transit and transportation master plan (RTTMP), which is being finalized in terms of scoping and the project is set to kick off in Q1. This will look at planning out regional transit projects to connect communities.
The CMRB came into existence in 2018 and consists of eight municipalities across 8,500 km squared. Their goal is to collaborate amongst its member municipalities on things like service delivery, development, and environmentally responsible land-use planning.
