Water surfaces again as issue with Calgary Regional Partnership

Calgary Herald - September 10

The rural municipality south of Calgary has withdrawn from the Calgary Regional Partnership, delivering a solid blow to the alliance's hopes to ratify a sustainable growth blueprint without the provincial government having to intervene. The Municipal District of Foothills' decision this week will likely be matched next week by Rocky View County and possibly Wheatland County, nearly three months after the rural districts all rejected the partnership's Calgary Metropolitan Plan.

Calgary, which holds most of the water-scarce region's water allocation licences, says it is willing to share water and extend sewer lines if its neighbours minimize the footprint of development and allow corridors for possible future city growth or annexations. But Rocky View said the growth plan makes regional servicing conditional on urban densities that even most Calgary suburbs don't have, while Foothills derides the plan's map suggesting growth along its boundary with Calgary as "blue blobs" of unwanted development.  Click here to read more.