Mountain View County has an updated land use bylaw after councillors gave third and final reading to comprehensive amendments on March 12.
The changes have been made to streamline and update the legislation, as well as to bring it into line with the overriding municipal development plan.
Work on the changes has been underway since spring 2013. The third and final reading motion came during the regularly scheduled council meeting.
The purpose of the updated land use bylaw is to “facilitate the orderly, economical and beneficial development and use of land and buildings within the county and for that purpose the bylaw, among other things, prescribes and regulates, for each land use district, the purpose for which the land and buildings may be used and establishes the method of making decisions on applications for redesignation and development permits, including the issuing of development permits.”
The updated bylaw includes changes to dwelling density, including setting a maximum dwelling density of four dwelling units per quarter section outside of growth centres and hamlets.
As well, the subdivision of new lots is restricted if four or more dwelling units currently exist on a quarter section. The maximum number of dwelling units for parcels 70 acres or less is one, the maximum number of dwelling units for parcels 70 acres or more is two.
Following last week's final reading, Reeve Bruce Beattie said he is pleased the process has been completed.
“It is important to have it done,” said Beattie. “It provides some certainty to residents who know exactly where the guidelines are around subdivision, around dwelling densities, and those issues that people were looking at before making decisions about their subdivisions. We wanted to get some certainty in that and it's good to have that behind us.
“We'll see how it works because it is a document that we continually review, so if we find issues with the way it is currently worded there will be opportunities to look at it and open it up again. The idea behind it is to make it public friendly and friendly for our staff when dealing with these land use issues.”
The updated bylaw also includes land use regulations relating to medical marijuana. There are no specific provisions relating to medical marijuana cultivation in the previous land use bylaw.
The updated bylaw requires medical marijuana facilities to be based in business park districts and heavy industrial districts.
Under an industrial district designation, such facilities must adhere to a number of regulations, including the requirement for a safety and risk assessment.
“We are directing those kinds of operations into existing industrial parks and we feel that is quite appropriate for us and what residents are looking for,” said Beattie.
“We will rely on the expertise of Health Canada to ensure that any of these operations meet the security requirements that people are concerned about. We are certainly not the only municipality dealing with this issue.”
A medical marijuana production facility now under construction outside Cremona does not fall under the new bylaw's location provisions.
“Under those existing regulations when they made their application, they were perfectly a legal use and they will now become a non-conforming legal use for that piece of land. They won't be able to expand. Under the current situation that can go ahead, based on them receiving Health Canada certification,” he said.
There has been opposition to the Cremona facility from some nearby residents, who say they have concerns with such things as security and water usage.
Asked if he has any regrets regarding the way the Cremona facility situation unfolded, Reeve Beattie said, “I think it is unfortunate that the federal government was not more active in letting us know when they changed the regulations. From my perspective the impact was on municipalities but there wasn't any opportunities for us to clearly understand what the implications were. It's not like we were alone.”
As well as the updated land use bylaw, councillors also gave third and final reading to amendments to the municipal development plan related to the new land use bylaw.
The updated land use bylaw and the municipal development plan are available for viewing on the county's website.
