MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY - Owners a 157-acre parcel in the Eagle Valley district northeast of Sundre want to develop a gravel pit on the property, although a change in the area structure plan (ASP) would be required for the project to move forward.
The owners appeared before Mountain View County council as a delegation at the recent, regularly-scheduled council meeting.
Located at SE 26-33-5-5, the property involved is located within the ASP within the ‘low density area’ as well as the ‘environmental area overlay’, council heard.
“The landowner’s intent is to develop a gravel pit,” administration said in a briefing note to council. “A re-designation application as well as concurrent ASP amendment is required as the ASP policies do not support gravel extraction and processing.”
The Eagle Valley area structure plan was approved in 2021 after a steering committee held public consultations. The plan guides future development within the plan area, located northeast of Sundre.
“Policy and Procedure 6006 developer initiated areas structure plans amendment requires the developer to discuss the merits of the proposal with administration and shall seek council consent to proceed with an ASP amendment (Section 2.1 and 2.3)”
The landowner met with administration in 2024 and was advised of the option to appear as a delegation before council.
“If council supports the request to proceed with an ASP amendment concurrent with a designation application, with supporting studies, the applicant will have to do community consultation and a public meeting prior to submission of the applications,” the briefing note states.
At the Jan. 15 council meeting, landowners Taylor Jones and Dylan Jones appeared as a delegation.
“We are looking at opening up a gravel pit, so we would need to amend the Eagle Valley (the ASP) for the purpose of developing sand and gravel,” said Dylan. “We are at the very southern edge of the area structure plan.
“Big benefits would be it would create jobs, a local company keeping money in the community, and also revenue for the county through the aggregate levy.
“The sources north of Sundre appears to be very high quality aggregate. We think it is the ideal location (with) very few residents in that specific area. The haul route has been improved and is used by several commercial vehicles.”
Taylor said, “The property that we would propose to have removed from the area structure plan is located outside of any environmentally significant area.
“Our proposal is that we would have a pit of approximately 36 hectares and we are proposing to have a five hectare portion being a wet pit and leaving behind a waterbody.
“We would progressively re-claim, so as we are developing we would also be re-claiming to keep our footprint smaller.”
The plan is to eventually re-claim the area back to agriculture, she said.
The property is outside the floodplain with no historical resources, Dylan said.
They have spoken to neighbouring homeowners within a one mile radius, as well as people who live off the proposed haul route, he said.
“We’ve had 13 indicating that they would support. We did have two that did say no. And we had two others who did not say yes or no,” he said.
Coun. Peggy Johnson put forward a motion to receive the delegation appearance as information with no action to be taken, which if passed would deny an ASP amendment. That motion was defeated, with Johnson being the only councillor voting in favour.
Council carried a subsequent motion accepting the delegation as information and directing administration to add the proposed amendment to an upcoming council meeting for further consideration.
Reeve Angela Aalbers said, “There is an expectation that council does have an opportunity to go away and process the information that we’ve heard and have a really good think about it so we are able to make the best decisions possible.
“We will have another discussion when this come forward at a subsequent council meeting.”
Chief administrative officer Jeff Holmes said the matter could come back before council on Jan. 29.
