Municipalities and Environmental Assessment: Primer and Model EA Bylaw

Alberta’s Municipalities and Environmental Assessment: A Primer and Model Bylaw for Alberta’s Municipalities

The Issue / Idea

Through regulation of private land uses and through local land use planning, municipalities play an essential role in the management and protection of Alberta’s environment. While Environmental assessment is a tool that enables better decision-making considering environmental, social, cultural and economic impacts of proposed land uses, municipalities may need support in developing supporting bylaws.

The Project

To enable municipalities to implement effective environmental assessment (EA) processes, the Environmental Law Centre developed a Model EA Bylaw. The Model EA Bylaw is accompanied by a primer which provides relevant background information.

The Model EA Bylaw provides a template for a municipal EA bylaw along with explanatory annotations. The template includes provisions addressing:

objectives/purposes,
application of the bylaw,
process,
prohibitions, and
definitions.

The companion primer provides background information on:

municipal authority over environmental matters,
municipalities and EA, and
the elements of a municipal EA bylaw.

Municipal Environmental Assessment: A Model Bylaw for Alberta’s Municipalities

Alberta’s Municipalities and Environmental Assessment: A Primer to the Model Bylaw

Organization

This project was undertaken by

The Environmental Law Centre

Status

Development of the primer and model bylaw began in the Fall of 2016 and was completed in

January 2018

Supporters

Max Bell Foundation

Anonymous Foundation

How Municipalities Apply Environmental Reserve in Alberta: A White Paper

A discussion paper to inform municipal planners on how environmental reserve is applied in Alberta and observations on the implications of the new Conservation Reserve tool to ER

The Issue / Idea

How has environmental reserve been interpreted and applied in Alberta? And, did this change with the new conservation reserve tool enabled under the Municipal Government Act?

The Project

To respond to the issue, the Miistakis Institute distributed a survey to understand the municipal application of environmental reserve. The survey was distributed through APPI, AUMA and AAMDC.

Using the outcomes of the survey as a starting point, a discussion paper was developed to provide context for environmental reserve, what the intent is in the MGA, and comments on how it is interpreted and used by municipalities. The paper concludes with a comparison of the previous MGA and the modernized MGA environmental reserve policies, and observations on how the new conservation reserve tool may affect environmental reserve application by municipalities.

Environmental Reserve in Alberta: Discussion Paper

Conservation Reserve Resources