Action Alerts

Guest editorial on Seebe sprawl encourages everyone to write

The following piece by Sarah Fulton was a guest editorial which appeared in the Calgary Herald on March 23, 2007, respecting the Moondance Lands development at Seebe. This presents an excellent opportunity for others concerned about this issue to send letters to the editor setting out your own concerns with the Seebe development. Letters can be sent to letters@theherald.canwest.com.

Sarah is a participant in CPAWS Calgary/Banff's Volunteer Leaders Program, a program which is designed to build volunteers’ skills in environmental advocacy. For more information on that program, and how to apply to participate in the coming year’s program, please contact Lynda Holleman at lholleman@cpawscalgary.org or (403) 232-6601.

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Seebe sprawl would spoil our natural capital

A proposed development near Seebe demonstrates the precarious state of land use planning in the province of Alberta

by Sarah Fulton

The lack of leadership and long-term planning during a period of tremendous growth could hold terrible consequences for the future.

At a hearing on the Seebe development on March 5, the challenge facing Bow Valley residents was clear: How do we maintain affordable housing for our community as it grows, while maintaining its integrity as a place of natural beauty and environmental importance?

Unfortunately, I believe the proposed community of 5,000 at Seebe is a case of “if you build it, they will come,” and I don’t just mean young families looking to stay in the Bow Valley.

Repeated efforts to meet the demand for housing in the Bow Valley will only result in continued sprawl within this corridor.

The gradual encroachment of Canmore on the surrounding landscape is only the most obvious example of the cost of unrestricted residential development in this area.

If we are to maintain our natural resources, and minimize the costs of our continued growth in Alberta, we must plan our development to be more sustainable.

That means preserving some areas, like Seebe, for the natural environment which we value and enjoy.

As our province continues to grow, questions like those raised by the proposed Seebe development will become more common.

More people make more demands on resources, and unsurprisingly, conflicts as to how to use those resources effectively will increase.

A cohesive approach to regional planning, taking into account the cumulative economic, social and environmental effects of individual development proposals, is critical to the long-term health of our provincial community.

Unfortunately, attempts at regional land use planning have historically failed, disabled by squabbling and necessarily self-interested municipalities, and conveniently overlooked by provincial authorities reluctant to make enemies by intervening in ostensibly local issues.

We must overcome these political challenges to the implementation of a regional planning framework.

At stake are issues clearly in evidence at Seebe: increasingly limited water availability, detrimental effects on sensitive wildlife, and the need to maintain the integrity of small towns and rural communities, particularly in the face of the rapid expansion of urban centres.

We must start thinking now about how we want our province to look 20, 50, and 100 years into the future.

It will not be possible for our grandchildren to enjoy our quality of life if we continue to feed our growth limitlessly with increased suburban sprawl.

I encourage all Albertans to tell their government representatives what their priorities are for the province, and make sure plans are being made to meet those priorities into the future.

Without a plan, development decisions will be made on a case-by-case basis, often in crisis.

If this is how the decision is made in Seebe, we will see how such short-sightedness can result in irreversible damage to the Alberta landscape we love.

© The Calgary Herald 2007

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