Second public hearing to be scheduled for proposed Lamont County land use bylaw

BY JANA SEMENIUK

A second Land Use Bylaw (LUB) public hearing will be scheduled in Aug. after Lamont County Reeve David Diduck addressed several letters from ratepayers, concerned with the proposed LUB, during their June 13 council meeting with at least 12 residents sitting in the gallery.

The LUB was met with hostility from the public after it passed first reading in Nov. and a public hearing in Jan., with complaints ranging from inadequate notification of the public hearing to arbitrary rules in the document around development and right of entry.

As a result, council deferred second and third reading of the LUB until ratepayers had enough time, 60 days, to voice their concerns through letters sent to the councillors with a deadline of May 15 for submission.

During last week’s county council meeting, Diduck went through the summarized concerns from 17 letters sent to the county, addressing each issue with his thoughts on the matter and discussion with council members.

In terms of appropriate advertising of the original public hearing in Jan, Diduck said, after some investigating, a larger ad in a more visible area of the newspaper would have been a better idea.

Although the Jan. hearing was advertised in various places including social media sites, neighbouring community online calendars, the county’s website and a small ad on their ‘In

Focus’ page in the Lamont Leader from last Nov. to Jan., only two ratepayers came to the hearing.

“Normally, if you're going to have a public hearing, I would say at least an eighth of the page inside (on) page three,” said Diduck. “I think this is important enough to advertise properly.”

While Diduck carefully addressed each concern, such as second permanent residences on properties and right of entry, he also included reasons why LUBs are necessary and mandated.

“One of the questions that was asked is, why do we need a document like this? A lot of the stuff that's came in the LUB is essentially a requirement of the municipal government act (MGA). There are certain areas of the LUB that reflect the MGA verbatim,” he said, adding the example of not being allowed to rebuild in an area that is part of a floodplain.

“That aspect of not allowing someone to redevelop if they're situated in a floodplain is part of the MGA. They're the ones that stipulate that you're not allowed to rebuild if you're in a one to a hundred-year flood zone.”

Councillor Neil Woitas made the motion, which was passed, for administration to schedule an evening public hearing for ratepayers to voice their concerns prior to second and third reading of the proposed LUB.

While the meeting is expected to be scheduled in Aug., an exact date has not yet been announced.

In a recent survey of adults 18+ living in communities of less than 100,000 population on the prairies, the majority of the respondents said