Municipal affairs minister says cities should speed up development approvals

Alberta's premier wants municipalities to move faster to approve valid housing and business park developments within their boundaries.

In a mandate letter to Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver, Premier Danielle Smith asks him to work with cabinet colleagues to "develop appropriate incentives and benchmarks to significantly reduce municipal approval times" for these proposed developments.

In a Tuesday interview, McIver said although he knows municipalities are trying  to efficiently approve developments, there's more they could do to expedite applications.

"Sometimes you hear from the builders, developers of the world, that it's not as quick as it should be," he said.

McIver, a former Calgary city councillor, said development must be sustainable and environmentally sound. However, he said he wants Alberta to have a reputation as one of the smoothest places to do business.

Time is money, he said, and holdups could prompt investors to look elsewhere before building a housing complex or a factory.

If land is zoned for a particular use, he said, municipalities should be able to do environment impact assessments and traffic studies before a developer comes calling.

Alberta Municipalities president and St. Albert Mayor Cathy Heron says municipalities are proud of how little red tape they have compared to other levels of government.

If anything is standing in the way of development of affordable housing, she said, it's a shortage of provincial funding.

"I've met an enormous amount of very good mayors and councillors across Alberta who believe in affordable housing," Heron said. "I see good decisions being made in the face of NIMBY-ism to put in affordable housing."

Although housing in Alberta is becoming increasingly more expensive, McIver says he has no appetite for the province to limit cities like Calgary from keeping zoning that allows only single-family homes. 

The Ontario and B.C. governments have wandered into regulating land use to increase density and allow for more housing construction.

"People need choice in housing," McIver said. "Some people want a small home. Some want a big home. Some only have the wherewithal for a small or medium-size home."

More review of local elections law coming

The premier has long floated the idea that municipalities should be able to keep some of the education property tax they collect on behalf of the province and school boards.

Her mandate letter asks McIver to review the feasibility of doing that.

This year's budget estimates municipalities will collect $2.5 billion in education property taxes, which will cover about 28 per cent of the costs of running the K-12 school system and education ministry.

McIver said with rising enrolment growth, and expanding cities, school costs will only rise, so he'll need to explore how the province would fund schools if the "education" tax was no longer for education.

Heron wants to hear more about that, adding that provincial funding for municipal infrastructure, such as roads, water, sewer and recreation centres, is "woefully insufficient."

Heron said there is a $30-billion backlog of municipal infrastructure across the province that needs upgrading or replacement. Yet the proportion of the provincial budget dedicated to this upkeep is decreasing over time, she said.

Next year, a new infrastructure model called the Local Government Fiscal Framework will tie increases or decreases in this funding to provincial revenues.

The premier has also tasked McIver with making amendments to the law governing local elections to bolster public trust in the process.

Smith has previously said she's interested in seeing a party system in municipal politics. Heron worries Smith's mention of reviewing election law could bring that to fruition.

Heron said she's seen voters reject slates in past elections.

"They want their individual councillors to have their own set of values and their own principles when they walk into council chambers," she said. "And be open to listening to their colleagues. And be free to vote in whichever direction they want. If you were to introduce political parties, that would be removed."

McIver said he doesn't see anything preventing civic candidates from running under party banners now. And that introducing partisanship formally into the civic sphere isn't part of his mandate letter.

Changes he'd like to see include adding the ability to view original electronic ballot papers during a recount, McIver said. He'd also like more poll-by-poll information released when official results are published.