An extensive review of legislation and procedures regarding aggregate extraction in rural Alberta has come up with a number of recommendations for improvements.
The Alberta Association of Municipal Districts & Counties (AAMDC) conducted the “Strategies to Secure Gravel For Rural Municipalities” review to examine, in part, the situation where “existing integrated land management plans (in Alberta) only clarify where gravel extraction can occur, not how to manage the abundance or scarcity of the resource.”
The AAMDC advocates for its rural municipality members, which include Mountain View and Red Deer counties.
Al Kemmere, the Mountain View County representative on AAMDC, says if implemented the recommendations would be helpful provincewide.
“The majority of the recommendations are primarily dealing with access to gravel on public lands rather than on private lands,” said Kemmere. “It's a provincewide approach to the whole issue.
“Primarily the focus (of the recommendations) was to have municipalities have at least some access to gravel on public lands before they (the province) auctions them all off to the private sector.”
The AAMDC review committee said, “Municipalities are increasingly experiencing delays obtaining gravel due to onerous and unclear regulatory processes. Policy intent is clear but procedures to implement policy are lacking.
“Challenges exist such as competition for gravel resources, cost of exploration and acquisition and uncertainty about how to reserve public gravel sources for future use.”
To look at the issues, the AAMDC launched the review to include an analysis of provincial and federal legislation and policies that have “impacts on the planning, allocation and development of gravel pits by municipalities on public land and to identify gaps and areas for improvement.”
The five recommendations coming out of the review process are as follows:
• That the AAMDC request Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) amend the Alberta Aggregate (sand and gravel) allocation policy for commercial use on public land to conduct referrals to rural municipalities earlier in the allocation process.
• That the AADMC request AESRD develop direct directives and guideline documents that set in place procedures for prioritizing rural municipal aggregate needs from public land sources within the department's land management systems and allocate aggregate to rural municipalities within the intent of the land use policies and provincial legislation.
“Uncertainty exists within the municipalities because of the lack of processes and procedures to implement policy,” the committee said. “Developing directives can clarify how costs to the taxpayer can be better managed.”
• That rural municipalities should conduct a cost benefit analysis against options to determine if acquiring and operating a pit and assuming the inherent environmental management cost and liability, are efficient in the long-term.
• That rural municipalities participate actively in regional planning processes through the land use framework regional advisory committees to raise awareness of aggregate needs, support future community growth and develop strategies to ensure economical supply of aggregate for future public works purposes.
• That the provincial government should work closely with rural municipalities towards development of a consistent bylaw framework for aggregate related development permit application requirements that considers the assessments, mitigation strategies and regulatory conditions approved by the province and reduces the duplication between provincial approvals and development permit approvals on both private and public land.
“There is an opportunity for better collaboration between the two levels of government on the approval of gravel pits, particularly those on private land,” the committee said.
The complete “Strategies to Secure Gravel For Rural Municipalities” report is available at aamdc.com.
Meanwhile, the redistribution linear tax revenue based on population – rather than the current system where each municipality collects and uses the revenue – would be very bad news for Alberta rural municipalities, according to another recent AAMDC report.
The “Apples to Apples: A Study of Rural Municipal Finance in Alberta” report examined the current state of rural municipal finances “to determine if the current taxation system can support the long-term financial viability of rural municipalities.”
The report's authors examined a number of questions, including “Are there trends in resource-based taxation revenue and to what level do rural municipalities depend on these revenue resources?” and “How important is linear taxation revenue to rural communities?” and “Should restricted municipal reserves be considered an indication of wealth or a financing tool?”
The authors determined that the redistribution of linear property revenue based on population would have “negative impacts on rural municipalities and threaten the viability and sustainability of rural municipalities. Our analysis shows immediate and extremely negative impacts to rural municipalities.
“This is the type of scenario that has been proposed in the province, and although it represents an extreme example, it does have a level of support from some decision makers.”
If linear taxation was based on population, it would lead to 50 per cent of all rural municipalities being immediately unable to cover their expenses, they said, noting that by 2016, the average rural municipality would have long-term debt over 90 per cent of its debt limit.
“These findings offer strong evidence against arguments for redistributing linear property revenue based on population and reinforces the short-sightedness of any population based distribution model.”
The authors also looked at rural infrastructure deficit, which is the difference between current conditions of rural municipal infrastructure (such as roads and bridges) and the optimal level of those assets.
They found that while the province's Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding has helped slow the rural Alberta infrastructure deficit, it has not eliminated the current $3-billion deficit.
“This clearly shows that MSI is a critical investment in Alberta municipalities, preventing billions in infrastructure deficit. However the current levels of funding have not been enough to completely limit deterioration or improve the overall portfolio condition.”
The report also found that rural municipalities continue to make substantial contributions to urban municipalities in the form of inter-municipal transfers.
