Municipal Development Plan

City of Camrose Municipal Development Plan

How should Camrose grow and develop in the next 25 years? We are listening!

The City of Camrose has started writing a new long-term plan to outline the way the city should grow into the future. This plan will:

• Operate under a guiding vision and core values that represent the heart of Camrose

• Lay out types and locations of potential development

• Support transportation, environment and economic growth

• Respect and promote the relationship Camrose has with Camrose County and other neighbouring entities

What is a Municipal Development Plan (MDP)?

A Municipal Development Plan (MDP) is a document that creates a long-term plan for a community. Municipalities use MDPs to show what values are going to guide their decision-making processes, what the community currently looks like and where they want to focus different types of growth, and how the area will connect to its surroundings through roads, utilities, and other services.

Why is the City writing this MDP now?

The current MDP in Camrose was adopted in 2011. Over the last 13 years Camrose has faced significant changes and it's time for a fresh outlook on the way the City decides to move forward with its growth and development. An increasing population, an ever-urgent need for affordable housing, climate change and emerging technologies are just some of the factors that represent significant potential for Camrose to adapt its leading policy document.

The City of Camrose invites its citizens to actively contribute to the update of its Municipal Development Plan (MDP). A first draft of the MDP has been created following previous rounds of engagement and the City is now looking for feedback on the draft policies. The draft of the Municipal Development Plan can be found here.

The MDP is organized around seven themes representing the goals and objectives for the City of Camrose through a set of core values. Each theme is divided into sections that have general intent, described through introductory text, and a set of objectives followed by specific policies in alignment with those objectives. Once this round of public feedback has been completed, the final draft of the document will be formed and presented to Council for first reading and a public hearing.

Camrose residents are warmly invited to attend the 'Our Camrose: Shaping the Future' Open House on Tuesday, May 28, from 4 to 7 p.m. at the Stoney Creek Centre (5320-39 Avenue). This is an excellent opportunity to share your thoughts on the themes and policies in the draft Plan. Your valuable feedback will guide the update of Camrose's new MDP.

Why a New MDP?

The Municipal Development Plan (MDP) is a policy document that creates a long-term plan for a community and guides its decision-making processes. Camrose's current MDP, adopted in 2011, requires updating to reflect significant changes in the City, such as new planning initiatives, an increase in population, and other developments.

The 'Our Camrose: Shaping the Future' Project aims to create a community-driven plan that inspires ownership and mirrors the values we uphold as a community. Your feedback and engagement are crucial in developing a comprehensive plan to guide the City's future decisions.

Stay Informed

For regular project updates, you can register by clicking on the 'Subscribe' link under 'Stay Informed' at www.ourcamrose.ca/mdp.

We value your contribution and look forward to shaping the future of 'Our Camrose' together.

We want to hear from you!

We're looking for your opinions and comments on the draft policies for the new Municipal Development Plan (MDP).

Join the Open House on May 28th at the Stoney Creek Centre from 4-7 p.m.

Location: Stoney Creek Centre

Address: 5320 39 Ave, Camrose, AB T4V 4L3

As we continue to collaborate on developing the updated MDP, we've truly enjoyed learning about all the qualities that make Camrose wonderful. Therefore, we've decided that there's no better way to showcase these wonderful things than by holding a photo contest. So, come on, Camrose! Send us your pictures here and show us what makes Camrose great!

The City of Camrose would like to welcome McElhanney as the new consultants on the Municipal Development Plan project. McElhanney has previously worked with several similar sized municipalities in Alberta to update their MDP and other long-range plans. We look forward to connecting Camrosians with our new project team.

*Biography below is provided by McElhanney

For over 111 years, McElhanney has been serving communities just like the City of Camrose. We were founded in Vancouver, and, while we have grown to 30 offices and 1,200 employees across Western Canada (see Figure 1) our focus has always been at the community level – providing services that improve the cities and towns in which we live and work. We start with the people and build a solution around them, whether it’s planning, survey, mapping, environmental, landscape architecture, or one of our many other in-house services; our approach is never to impose an outside, one-size-fits-all solution.

For the last 50 years, McElhanney’s foundational survey and engineering offerings have evolved to include advanced planning services such as land use and development approvals, community planning and policy, public and stakeholder engagement, recreation, tourism, community sustainability, and urban design. Our talented and diverse staff consists of professional community planners, designers, engagement specialists, engineers, graphic designers, mappers, and support staff who regularly collaborate to review, update, and/or develop MDPs, Land Use Bylaws (LUB), as well as Area Structure Plans (ASP). Our project team has delivered MDP’s for similar municipalities that needed to align with the MGA and with community priorities.

Figure 1: It's more than a project, it's our hometown. While we have worked across Canada and around the world, our focus is on delivering.

Figure 2: Our McElhanney planning team has worked on community plans including several MDPs and LUBs across Alberta, as shown on the map.

McElhanney’s Project Team

McElhanney’s team of professionals is ready and eager to assist the city with delivering the new MDP. We have undertaken MDP review projects for other communities across Alberta (see Figure 2), and therefore understand what it takes to deliver an efficient and comprehensive review.

Meet McElhanney’s core team of professionals that will be assisting the city with the MDP review project.

Jill Hofer, RPP, MCIP

Project Role: Project Manager / Engagement / Community Design & Housing

About Jill: Jill has worked as a municipal planner with three separate municipalities. She has served in both a policy planner role, preparing long-range policy planning documents including MDPs, and Area Redevelopment Plans and an implementation planner, drafting implementation documents such as land use bylaws, and reviewing development permits

Andrea Rudiger, MPlan

Project Role: Deputy Project Manager / Engagement / Community Design & Housing

About Andrea: Andrea has a diverse background in Design and Construction, giving her a well-rounded understanding of the development industry from planning through to occupancy. She is a planner with over nine years of multidisciplinary experience in architecture, planning and project delivery.

When to Engage Again:

The updated project schedule can be located here.

Community engagement is currently scheduled for April. As the date grows closer, more communication will be provided.

On January 22, 2024, Administration presented the Growth Study to City of Camrose Council. A Growth Study is a comprehensive examination of future growth predicted for Camrose. The growth predictions developed in the Growth Study are based on the City’s historic growth rate and future growth projections, with considerations for demographic shifts and employment forecasting. In combination with existing land supply analysis, the Growth Study provides varied future growth scenarios for population and employment. The Growth Study also establishes potential land that Camrose may require to accommodate future growth, and identifies what areas could be developed because of that growth.

The growth study was developed by Green Space Alliance, in conjunction with 360 Collective.

A copy of the Growth Study can be found here.

Did you miss the Technical Review Committee (TAC) and Community Advisory Committee (CAC) meeting on November 9 but still want to provide your input? Here is a link to the presentation boards from the meeting. Let us know what you think by November 24, 2023 at planning@camrose.ca!

The Technical Review Committee (TAC) and Community Advisory Committee (CAC) met on November 9, 2023, and provided guidance on the following topics:

• Reviewed and provided comments on the draft community values for Camrose that will form the overall theme and guiding principles of the plan;
• Reviewed the draft growth study, and discussed new residential communities and supporting commercial and industrial development; and
• Reviewed high-level policy sections that will form the backbone of the text for the plan.

Thank you to members of the TAC and CAC who were able to attend the meeting to provide their input!

Moving forward, the City of Camrose will work to finalize the Growth Study, and present to Council before the end of the year.

The City of Camrose is excited to continue conversations this fall as our staff work together with the consultant on the completion of the growth study. A Growth Study is a comprehensive look at the trends of a municipality's growth over time. It investigates historic population growth, demographics as well as land supply and absorption to project how and where the City's growth should occur in the future. The City of Camrose last had a growth study completed in 2006. The growth study will inform the MDP by determining where new community growth is likely to occur, so that policy and standards for that growth can be written into the policy of the MDP.

The project team were pleased to have the opportunity to engage so many Camrosians through the first round of engagement. People participated in sessions, open houses, surveys, and meetings. The project team has developed a What We Are Hearing report to summarize the important conversations about the future of Camrose. The focus of the project team over the summer months will be on the community growth study – looking at how, where, and when Camrose is expected to grow. Thank you to everyone that participated, and we look forward to hearing more from you in Fall 2023.