Plan is 'nothing without the bylaws'

Written by Ashley Gaboury
Wednesday, 22 February 2012 10:39

Creating a vibrant city centre is the goal of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo’s recently approved development plan, but local developers aren’t holding their breath on the municipality putting the plan into action.

The City Centre Area Redevelopment Plan (CC-ARP) was passed after a unanimous vote at the Feb. 14 RMWB council meeting.

Christy Fong, a city planner with the RMWB and project co-ordinator for the City Centre Action Program, says the CC-ARP is a 20-year plan designed for the city centre.

“The main objective is to guide and facilitate revitalization in the downtown area. That will enhance our quality of life,” said Fong.

Despite the future city spread, Fong says the municipality sees the downtown area as the region’s hub for many years to come.

“We notice that there is new development across the hill as well as in other areas. However, we strongly believe that the city centre will be the central point of the region,” said Fong.

Jennifer Roberts, executive director of the Urban Development Institute of Wood Buffalo, said her organization is in full support of the CC-ARP.

However, Roberts said UDI members are concerned that the CC-ARP could face a similar fate as the 2009 Lower Townsite Area Redevelopment Plan. Without an update to the city centre land use bylaw, the 2009 plan was never put into action.

Roberts explained that UDI members attended stakeholder meetings prior to the 2009 plan and were frustrated when asked to attend similar stakeholder meetings last fall for the CC-ARP.

“We encountered a lot of frustration from our members,” said Roberts of asking members to attend stakeholder meetings last fall. “They were saying ‘Back in 2009 we went to all these stakeholders meetings. We spent our time, we gave our input.’”

Roberts acknowledges that the 2009 plan was not scrapped, as some of her members felt, but was in fact updated to create the CC-ARP. Still, she says, the CC-ARP is “nothing without the bylaws.”

“The plan is just dreams in the sky without a bylaw to actually enforce it,” said Roberts. “That’s what we wanted to say is basically we love the plan, it’s a great plan but it’s nothing without the bylaw. And we really want to see these bylaws come into effect as soon as humanly possible.”

Fong acknowledged how the 2009 plan fizzled out and said this time a committed timeline will help push forward the CC-ARP.

“The difference between this program and the plan in 2009 is that this is an action program,” explained Fong. “To update the area redevelopment plan is just part of the (CC-ARP). There is a series of projects coming up to achieve the visions we set out in the (CC-ARP).”

She said updates to the land use bylaw will follow shortly after the adoption of the CC-ARP.

“We anticipate to have the bylaw in place in the first half of 2012. This is quite different because in 2009 we didn’t make a commitment that we would visit the bylaw, at least not with a proper timeline.”

Fong says public response to CC-ARP has been quite positive.

“They have no objections on it. They said it’s a great idea, a good vision, but let’s do something and see some tangible change.”

According to the RMWB website, the City Centre Action Program was “established with an objective to create a vibrant and dynamic city centre.”

The first action of this program was to update the 2009 Lower Townsite Area Redevelopment Plan through the creation of the CC-ARP. The second action is to update the land use bylaw within the city centre area.