Category: Land Use

By: David Laidlaw

Matter Commented on: Lower Athabasca Regional Plan

PDF Version: Lower Athabasca Regional Plan 10-Year Review

The Land Use Secretariat (LUS) had commenced the 10-year review  of the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan on August 26, 2022, according to the August 29, 2022 News Release, this review was intended to give advice to the Alberta government to “assess the ongoing relevancy and effectiveness of the existing plan in supporting the long-term vision for economic, social and environmental needs in the region.” This is required under section 6(1) of the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, SA 2009, c A-26.8 (ALSA), as previously written about by Professors Mascher, Bankes, and Olszynski. The Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) was approved in August 22, 2012 with Order in Council 268/2012 as a cabinet level regulation with LARP becoming effective on September 1, 2012. As noted in the LARP Review webpage, “[a) 10-year review does not amend, repeal or replace the regional plan. The 10-year review will result in a report from the Land Use Secretariat to the Stewardship Minister on the ongoing relevancy and effectiveness of the regional plan.”

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By: Nigel Bankes, Sharon Mascher & Martin Olszynski

PDF Version: The Sad State of Regional Land Use Planning in Alberta

Matters Commented On: (1) Coal Policy Committee, Final Report: Recommendations for the Management of Coal Resources in Alberta, December 2021, released to the public March 4, 2022, (2) Minister Sonya Savage, Press Release,  Getting it Right on Coal in Alberta, March 4, 2022, (3) Lower Athabasca Regional Plan, and (4) South Saskatchewan Regional Plan

The release of the Coal Policy Committee Recommendations on March 4, 2022, offers three reminders as to the sad state of regional land use planning in Alberta. The first reminder is that 14 years after the adoption of the much-heralded Land Use Framework in 2008, and 13 years after the adoption of the Alberta Land Stewardship Act, SA 2009, c A-26.8 (ALSA), we still have only two approved plans in Alberta, the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan (LARP) (approved August 22, 2012, and brought into force September 1, 2012) and the South Saskatchewan Regional Plan (SSRP) (adopted in 2014). This was significant to the Coal Policy Committee because it meant that while plans adopted under ALSA might ultimately supersede the “nascent form of land-use planning” (at 22) embodied in the “coal categories” of the 1976 Coal Policy, we are still awaiting plans for the balance of the eastern slopes of the Rockies north of the SSRP, namely for the North Saskatchewan, the Upper Athabasca and the Upper Peace regions (see Figure 1, below).

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