Coronation’s land use bylaw draft in process

Written by ECA Review

Coronation council reviewed a first draft of the local Land Use Bylaw at their regular meeting Mon. Nov. 8 outlines the additional zoning allowances of urban farming and tiny homes to further modernize it.

These introductions come to light as the current Land Use bylaw the town uses is from 2009 and can be hard to navigate and understand.

The new suggested classifications would encourage residents to construct and operate an urban farm.

The new provisions and permitted development types would allow the development of apartment suits in their backyards, or more commonly known as Granny Flats.

This new addition would follow and be in conjunction with the tiny home provisions of the bylaw.

Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Quinton Flint shared with council that after constant talks with Palliser Regional Municipal Services on interpreting the bylaw, it has been decided to rebuild and modernize the documentation to operate more smoothly.

“We didn’t want it to be restrictive or have red tape attached to it as much as possible,” said Flint. “The optimal opportunity though would be that that person purchases the land to put an urban farm on the land.”

In his report, he explains that “By allowing diversification in development within the municipality, this becomes a tool to attract more home buyers from outside of the region and provides more opportunity for low-income housing development within our community. However, Urban Farming did have one major drawback to consider.”

“With this type of development, it is viewed as a downgrade in each zone. For example, the Town of Coronation owns a lot with water drainage issues; they sell the property to an individual to build their urban farm. When the town sells that parcel of land, it would be sold as urban farming land. The main reasoning behind this is a liability concern.

“When the individual who purchased the lot decides to sell the property, the new owners seek compensation from the previous owner for damages to a new building because the information was not disclosed. The municipality could then be forced and be required to provide financial support to fix the drainage issues.”

However, if the land is downgraded, he explained that new owners will be required to apply for a zoning reclassification.

This would then require the resident or owner to apply for a rezoning application to build on that land or develop afterward. The reason is to ensure that undesirable land sold will not be flogged later and prevent liabilities to the municipality.

“It could be one of those things where it [tiny homes] is a stepping stone so having the opportunity and being able to entice that and use that as an attraction to our community I think is huge,” said Flint. “Not many communities in Alberta have taken that on.”

Council accepted this draft as information to allow for council to review further.

The draft will be available after first reading is given at a future meeting.

 

Terri Huxley

ECA Review

About the author

ECA Review

The East Central Alberta Review (ECA Review), formerly known as the Coronation Review, is a newspaper that services 28,000+ homes each week.