Land Use

Looking west from the Brocket hill towards Crowsnest Pass you can see Turtle Mountain just left of centre in this photo (click the pic to see a larger image).

One can guess from this picture that there would not be an overabundance of land available for development in this pass through the Rockies and one would not be far from wrong. Crowsnest Pass is about 33 kilometres long and up to 16 km wide and currently houses approximately 5800 full time and ove 20% more weekend or part time residents, most of whom live in the current urban areas of the pass in single family residences. Our land base is constricted with, steep slopes, important wildlife habitat, wildlife corridors, and property owned by Alberta Sustainable Resource Development. If the Pass is to grow in a sustainable fashion responsible land use planning is critical.

Drive out of Calgary in any direction and once you leave the urban sprawl you will see the obscene spread of country residential development on land that was once used for growing grain or raising cattle. Those acreages are located with the Municipal District of Rocky View which surrounds the city of Calgary. That MD does not have the restraints on developable land our Pass does. If they wished, and landowners desired more subdivisions, they could develop in this fashion, taking away agricultural land and open spaces, for a very long time. The people and council of Rocky View recognized the waste and just recently their municipal council adopted a new Municipal Development Plan stopping country residential development in favour of higher density development within the existing villages located in the MD. They chose to decide how they should grow.

Here at home council, in the past month, approved extending the reach of country residential development into one of the few remaining areas of the Pass not already zoned Grouped Country Residential with the rezoning and subsequent approval of an area structure plan for country residential development at the north east end of our municipality along Gold Creek. Council subsequently cut funding for a new municipal development plan from the budget and went on to approve that budget.

The Regional Advisory Council of the Land Use Framework will be considering MDPs as part of their local consultation process. The adoption of a new MDP, here, developed with full public consultation would have given our municipality the statutory documentation needed to show the RAC what the people of Crowsnest Pass want to see in terms of responsible land use. Our collective voice would not be ignored in Land Use Framework deliberations.

Fortunately, the Province is taking land use seriously. The Land Use Framework appears to be based on strong conservation values and much of what many (including myself) have been advocating will likely be achieved through the Land Use Framework process. Sadly, though, we have to wait for the Province to pick up were we failed.

A press release and background information on the Alberta Land Stewardship Act can be found here http://www3.telus.net/garytaje/Landuse/ In the folder you will find a number of pdf files. They are arranged in proper order for reading

A real surprise

Not a post about Crowsnest Pass, fishing, or politics. Instead a link to some amazing entertainment. If you have a few minutes check out this youtube link (no embedding) you will be glad you did. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

As a young guy I had the opportunity to attend a number of broadway shows in London's theatre district. The first was Gypsy and I went only because a young lady from Israel suggested we would enjoy it. It was enthralling from the opening song and I could not get enough. This video recreates that incredible rush I felt when I first heard a live musical.

Heritage Initiative receives award

In this earlier post, Where Have We Been? Where Are We Going?, I wrote about the successful Heritage Driving Route project developed by the Crowsnest Pass Heritage Initiative. The program is well under way complete with highway signage, route markers, and driving map. The Initiative is now finalizing completion of the story telling portion of the enterprise, which will include kiosks and additional signage through out the Pass on the Heritage Driving Route. For all its hard work the Heritage Initiative has unexpectedly received the above reward from The Chinook Country Tourist Association.

Congratulations to all involved in the innovative program. You have shown everyone what new ideas and hard work can bring to our community. Well done!

Crowsnest Pass Dreamer

Just a quick post to inform everyone of an interesting new Crowsnest Pass blog: Crowsnest Pass Dreamer. I have also added a link under Crowsnest Pass blogs. The blog looks as though it will be presenting some positive ideas, direction, and selling points for our Pass. Take a look.

Budget Process

We are now approaching the middle of March and Crowsnest Pass Council has yet to determine our spending for 2009. Seemingly we do have agreement on the capital budget. In the past couple of months we have had 3 meetings set to deal with this year's budget.

The first of the three meetings began quite well with only six of council present. The mayor was absent due to emergency surgery (he is a surgeon). Council made a few cuts with the decisions being made by a show of hands and no debate. Recommendations then came forward to eliminate our budget for marketing and economic development. Further recommendations for savings were tendering of advertising, cuts to non government organizations, and changing the base year for the senior's rebate. I gave council my opinions in opposition to those changes. Council's reaction was; Since we can't make a decision there is no point in continuing and the meeting was adjourned.

Our next budget meeting was even shorter. At the outset I proposed we cut $65,000 from the budget by eliminating a corporate review, with of course, my reasons for that recommendation. The majority of council disagreed. I then presented a proposal to eliminate that $65,000 and then put in the budget a Municipal Development Plan. $25,000 of which would come from this year's budget and $25,000 to come out of next years. This proposal would of saved $40,000 from this years budget and get us started on a new MDP. Giving the people of the Pass the chance to determine the direction the Pass should proceed on. A councilor then stated that since we weren't discussing budget we should end the budget meeting. Then made a motion to go into camera to discuss some legal issues pending. The motion passed effectively bringing to an end that budget meeting.

Last night's meeting was the shortest yet. Upon commencement of the budget portion of last night's committee meeting council only discussed proposed future dates on which we could meet to discuss budget. Dates were set and the meeting adjourned.

Frank Slide

I had made plans to spend the holiday today (Family Day) skiing with friends at our Crowsnest Pass ski hill, Pass Powderkeg, a super community ski area.

My wife, mind you, had other plans. Paddy suggested we take advantage of the free admission for family day at the Frank Slide Interpretive Centre being as we hadn't been there since the massive renovations completed this past September. Fortunately, for a change, I was smart enough to listen to her.

Wow! Was I impressed. Brilliant new interpretive displays that even the most ardent Crowsnest Pass historian can learn from. Exciting interactive demos, that kids of all ages will love, of the sensitive monitoring equipment in place on Turtle Mountain to warn of an impending slide. "In the Mountain's Shadow" the audio visual depiction of our mining history, so powerful, it could surely incite Conrad Black to pen a manifesto guiding us to a new social order, one in which capitalists would walk with heads hung low. "On the Edge of Destruction" the new stimulating docudrama truthfully brings to life the story of the destructive and lethal rock slide. All in all an entertaining, educational, and enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. I will go back and happily pay the token admission to dig into the interpretation a little deeper.

January in the Pass

Well January is acting up again turning things here into a deep freeze. The previous couple of weeks though (because of a little wind) saw gorgeous weather. Chinooks make Crowsnest Pass the best place in Alberta to live. We invariably get warm breezy breaks from winter. The best way to take advantage of those welcome respites from frost bite is to get out with fly rods in hand to exercise some of the local trout and get out we did. It is an incredible feeling breaking trail through virgin snow, knowing you are going to be the first person to fish the water this year.
Even Susan was able to escape her Crowsnest Cafe and Fly Shop, in Coleman, a couple times to beat the winter doldrums with some well caught rainbows. Sunny days and co-operative trout can't be beat. Susan got a much bigger one this day, a real lunker, but unfortunately I was a ways away and didn't get a pic. Here she is though playing with a nice 17" rainbow.
Kirby and I got out quite a bit while the weather held. We picked up a few nice bulls and some good rainbows including one I caught that was bigger than any rainbow (with one uninspiring exception) I got all last season. Kirby (being a dryfly purist and all) doesn't get too many big bulls a year but this year he is hammering them constantly. No, not on dries! Here he is fighting a good one. He is so happy fishing sub-surface now that he can not help but give his award winning smile for the camera while showing off one of his good bulls.
No matter how long one fishes an area he can still be surprised by what is pulled out of the water. This fish was not just a surprise it was a bit of a shock.
It is not very often one catches a lake trout in Southern Alberta on a fly in flowing water. Matter of fact this one is my first.

Great weather in January. Another super reason to live here in Crowsnest Pass!