From housing prices to the push for street performers, laws governing development and expansion are an inescapable and omnipresent part of life in Jasper. Looking at Land Use provides an in-depth exploration of how those laws impact the lives of the park鈥檚 citizens, business owners and government鈥攗ntangling the complexities of the issues and exploring what they mean for Jasper as it heads into the future.
When Jasper was incorporated as a specialized municipality in 2001, it gained jurisdiction over much of the town鈥檚 operations, but one key item was left out.
Parks Canada retained control over land use planning and development. This decision was made deliberately, as a decade earlier, Parks watched Banff grow exponentially after it gained local governance, including jurisdiction over land use.
鈥淧arks Canada was troubled by the amount of development in Banff,鈥� said Mayor Richard Ireland during the Jan. 21 council meeting. 鈥淪o when we went through the same process [to become a local government], they said 鈥榯here is no way a local council ought to have control over those things, you will run amuck.鈥欌��
So, nearly 13 years after Jasper鈥檚 incorporation, the town continues to be developed with, what Peter Waterworth, chief administrative officer, calls an 鈥渁d hoc approach.鈥� And this is done 鈥渁t the cost of lost opportunity for cohesion and good design.鈥�
But, this could all change.
In the Jasper Community Sustainability Plan, Parks agreed to a review of land use planning and development, and at last week鈥檚 council meeting, a motion was passed to support municipal participation in such a review.
鈥淚 see this process as, not as big, but similar to us achieving our self-governance 12 or 13 years ago,鈥� said Coun. Dwain Wacko during council鈥檚 discussion on whether or not to participate in the review. 鈥淔or us to take that kind of responsibility, we need a very careful look at what鈥檚 going on and what we would be getting ourselves into.鈥�
Council鈥檚 support, as written in the motion, is contingent on the the completion of a memorandum of understanding, as well as the approval of a tender for the review. So, as it stands, the motion doesn鈥檛 commit the municipality to any spending.
If the conditions are met and council chooses to move forward, the municipality will fund half of the cost of the entire review: $125,000. As things stand, it has $15,000 in its budget to cover its portion of the first stage of the project: a baseline analysis to inform the review and to promote a constructive dialogue between the municipality and Parks.
This stage will give the two parties a starting point for a discussion on how to streamline and provide an integrated development process that will provide clarity for citizens and staff. The review will also consider the possibility of jurisdictional change.
The second and final stage of the review would seek alignment on how to enable improved design and land use in Jasper.
Gaining jurisdiction over land use planning and development has been a priority for council since the municipality鈥檚 incorporation. This is because the process is currently confusing and often onerous for residents, as it can be unclear which governing body to approach for a land use or development issue.
For instance, when Monika Schaefer, a local musician and music teacher, approached council to inquire what it would take to permit busking on Jasper鈥檚 streets, she was told it鈥檚 a complicated issue because busking, strangely enough, is a land use issue.
It鈥檚 the use of public land. So, as things stand between Parks and the municipality, even if the municipality were to seek public input and there was support for busking, it wouldn鈥檛 have the power to formalize it. The same goes for sidewalk cafes, which were requested by local restauranteurs a number of years ago.
Part of the disconnect between who-does-what is that many requests have overlap. So, a resident might need to approach Parks for the first steps in a process and then the municipality next.
A good example of this is business licenses: the municipality issues them, but Parks has jurisdiction over discretionary use.
The intention of this review is to clear up some of these issues by either streamline the existing land use planning and development processes, to make them easier for residents, or to transfer jurisdiction over land use and planning to the municipality.
(In order for such a transfer to take place, the 2001 agreement signed between the municipality and Parks would have to be amended.)
In either outcome, the hope is that the current land development practices will be updated to encourage and enable creative development within the townsite.
The first step in the process will be the completion of a memorandum of understanding between the two parties. Waterworth guessed that that will be completed in April or May.
If the memorandum is agreed upon, then a tender will be written for the first stage of the review. At that point, if council approves the tender, the first stage of the review will begin.
The entire project will likely take up to two years to complete.
In the next instalment of Looking at Land Use, the 51暗网 will explore the wide-ranging effects land use regulations have on the town. We offer perspectives from a man who gave up his family home because of need to reside laws, Parks Canada staff looking to combat the chronic housing shortage and businesses trying to stay afloat in a town facing extensive barriers to growth. Check out next week鈥檚 issue for the story.
Nicole Veerman
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