The area this bylaw regards is north of the Blairmore Cemeteries.
The Land Use Re-designation and Text Amendment are proposed to accommodate a resort development. The resort would provide a variety of short and long-term vacation rentals. The phased development would commence in the spring of 2021.
Phase 1 would include: 12 RV campground units, seven Cottage/Cabin sites, and two duplex sites for Golf Course vacation rentals.
Future development phases may include apartments, cabins, tiny homes and an expansion of the initial Phase 1 development.
The Non-Urban Commercial Recreation District NUCR-2 identifies "Resort" as a permitted use.
Within the NUCR-2 district, permitted and discretionary accommodation uses are listed however; their definitions do not capture all of the development types being proposed.
The proposed addition of "Resort Accommodation" as a discretionary use to the NUCR-2 District would accommodate the variety of units in the proposed development.
"Resort accommodation means a facility for visitors to a resort, which may be in the form of visitor accommodation, apartment hotels, lodges, campground or other forms of tourist accommodation."
The only development that currently exists on the lands is the applicants single-family dwelling constructed under DP2020-076 on the east parcel.
Council spent a fair deal of time discussing this bylaw.
A public hearing was held on this bylaw prior to Council's discussion of it.
During that hearing, one resident spoke to whether or not this Council could lock in any changes or if future council's would have the ability to change what happens to that area.
CAO Patrick Thomas said that isn't possible.
"One of the considerations was to lock this in, essentially forever, but a land use bylaw is a document that is changed by the council of the day. We don't have the ability to lock it in stone."
Councillor Ward added to that.
"No Council today can commit to what a Council will do five years from now."
Council also spent time discussing moving the “Resort Accommodation” to NUCR-2 as a permitted use would work.
"I'm just wondering why we can't have Resort Accommodation under permitted uses and be done with it," said Councillor Girhiny.
Councillor Ward says things would be entirely out of Council's hands if that were to be done.
"That would mean moving forward from this day, any property that is zones NUCR-2 would be able to build whatever they want as long as they conform with all the other standards. It's fine if that's the approach Council wants to take but you will lose all control over any discretionary use. From my experience sitting on the MPC for about 10 years, this will come back to bite us in the rear end because at some point somebody's going to have a piece of land zoned NUCR-2 and they're going to do a bunch of stuff that neighbours or the local community isn't happy with at all. At that point, as long as they're following whatever the standards, are, we'd have no say."
Mayor Painter pointed out that this would be moving only Resort Accommodation into permitted uses and not a whole list of other discretionary uses at this time.
"This isn't adding a whole list of discretionary uses. This is adding one of the suggested uses."
Following those comments, Councillor Sygutek advised Council that she would be willing to vote for second reading but would like more time to think about this topic before making a final decision.
Following that discussion, Councillor Ward moved second reading.
That motion was carried.
Councillor Glavin said she believed Council had discussed this topic enough to make an informed decision and made a motion for third and final reading
That motion was carried.
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