Phase One of Rocky View County’s (RVC) Bragg Creek Area Structure Plan is currently underway, with council moving to appoint members to an eight person "Visioning Committee" that will,“collaborate to produce a vision for land use in the Hamlet.”
The Area Structure Plan’s (ASP) Terms of Reference, which outline the guidelines to how the development of the ARP will work, was approved by council at a meeting in March. The project carries a price tag of $618,000, of which $200,000 is being covered by a provincial Northern and Regional Economic Development Grant.
The Visioning Committee is intended to “represent the perspectives of businesses, environmental groups, community services, and residents of Bragg Creek” and will work to establish “consensus on a vision and high-level policy direction for the ASP review project.”
The eight committee members chosen by council are Baruch Laskin, Terri-Lynn Dugue, Clint Docken, Renee Delorme, Ian Greenhalgh, Lindsay Kindrat, Tijs Overmars, and Shannon Bailey. The members will represent environmental, business, residential, and community services, while the committee’s new chair, Neal LaMontange, will serve as the independent third party leader of the committee.
“These members are going to be talking to a lot of folks,” said Division 1 Coun. Kevin Hanson. “[This]should be a nice comprehensive review.”
The committee will meet monthly starting in May, and will wrap up in September. According to County officials, twenty people applied to represent Bragg Creek on the Visioning Committee. Only two applied for the position of committee chair, which is a paid position that accounts for a portion of the committee’s $75,000 operating budget.
The council report on the subject states that the committee chair was selected by council based on a score they received on three different criteria: qualifications and experience, the candidate’s service delivery plan, and the quoted price for the candidate’s service.
The eight members of the committee are all volunteers and were selected by council without any evaluations being done by administration. The council report states that because a member of administration will be heavily involved with the committee’s proceedings, administration believed it would be best if they maintained impartiality towards all members of the committee.
As of yet, no date has been set for the Visioning Committee’s first meeting.
