Piped services tie in questioned

Times Contributor      

 

A portion of the Wheatland Municipal Development Plan (MDP) was tested in Wheatland Council on Nov. 18, when a farming couple living near Nightingale requested a re-designation to Agriculture Small Holding for 32.46 acres around their house. The parcel was a portion of a 131.96 acre parcel, which is currently designated as Agricultural General. In the past, a piece of the quarter section was cut off by an old rail track, and logically it had been subdivided and developed into house lots as they sit next to the Nightingale hamlet boundary.

The kicker on this re-designation and subsequent subdivision is a requirement by the new MDP to provide piped services, at the owner’s expense, when five or more parcels are taken out of a quarter section of land. In this case, that service hookup would have to install and link to a pipeline running from Strathmore or Calgary because Nightingale doesn’t have centralized piped services.

“How can the existing house be required to tie into Calgary or Strathmore services?” asked Pat Maloney, a local planning consultant attending the Nov. 18 public hearings.

It was something that just didn’t make common sense to her, or many others in the audience. 

“Common sense has to prevail”, said Councillor Brenda Knight, who questioned the terms of the MDP in this situation. “That cost would just be unreasonable.”

Development staff suggested options that would eliminate the need for piped services. They included keeping the land undivided as an Ag general property, repackaging the request in a smaller 16.9 acre parcel that would be designated a small holding contained within the hamlet of Nightingale, or ask council to waive the piped service requirement and move forward with the requested re-designation.

The applicants said they just want to downsize their farm activity, while planning for their retirement years. They stated they have no desire to develop the smaller plot into lots, or integrate the property into the Nightingale hamlet. Their intention was to preserve the natural habitat of the treed area by including it in the re-designated acreage. The treed area is less suitable for farming and it marks a natural boundary between the two areas. Preservation of natural areas and conforming to land contours is a factor supported in the Municipal Development guidelines. 

They already have a working well and septic system that is contained within the boundaries of the suggested re-designation.

Later in the day, a first reading was approved for a similar situation, on a property situated just north of Nightingale. Discussion on the topic will be addressed at the public hearing that will follow in several weeks’ time.

Many properties in Wheatland have areas cut off by old rail lines or irrigation ditches. They may have been sold and subdivided in the past by previous land owners, yet conforming to the previous MDP guidelines. Smaller parcels are often sold off from the main parcel as they are unsuitable to farm and provide additional capital for the farm business, or are used to adapt to changes in the farm family management unit. 

Since many hamlets and villages in Wheatland County don’t have existing piped water and sewer treatment services, and communal well and septic fields are discouraged in the MDP, the requirement to tap into Strathmore or Calgary services may create a development hierarchy within the County. Some areas will find the development costs prohibitive due to the piped service requirement and other centres will experience growth, as they have a piped service available for tie ins. For elderly farmers with land bordering the have not communities, it may just make retiring much more complex and difficult.

As to whether council will continue to repeatedly waive the servicing requirement of the Municipal Development Plan, amend the plan to alter the requirements, or come up with innovative ways for small hamlets and villages to develop piped services, remains to be seen.