Kevin Hanson – Division 1
Quick Bits
June 17th Council approved a budget adjustment of 25K to top up grant funding from 75K to 100K available between Chambers of Commerce in Bragg Creek, Langdon, Bearspaw, and Airdrie Regional. This would allow granting to remain at historic 2024 levels as there were now 4 Chambers seeking the grant – with Airdrie Regional being the new kid on the block. Council voted to split the budget equally between the 4 of them at 25K each. Note that 2 board members of the Airdrie Regional Chamber are from Balzac-based businesses.
Beacon AI Hub ASP approved
Also on June 17th the Beacon AI Hub Area Structure Plan was approved – our first hyper-scale data centre. As part of the process a new land use called S-DAT (special – data centre) was amended into the Land Use Bylaw, and a specific S-DAT “overlay” for the Beacon development
was approved to complete the business. Note that this ASP was entirely proponent funded, including covering costs of Admin oversight project deliverables.
2nd Egress
Both the Bragg Creek Community Association and the Bragg Creek Chamber wrote letters to Council and the CAO outlining their concerns on the status of the 2nd Egress for north of the Elbow River. As a result Council was briefed on June 17th of the status of the project, and we were informed that the attempt at renewed negotiation with Tsuu’ Tina Nation has now been officially declined by the Nation. This was helpful for Council to know, and my thanks to the BCCA and the Chamber for their efforts to help push the rock up the hill. I have been discussing this issue with CAO McCullough since touring him around the area shortly after his hiring.
FireSmart
We are looking to host the next FireSmart Committee Meeting on July 7th. The main business of the meeting is to review the DRAFT 2025 Greater Bragg Creek Wildfire Mitigation Strategy that Josh Hoddinott from HFM consulting has prepared. The committee had late last year set the study planning area to include the ASP boundary for its eastern extent, and a sweeping arc of the Kananaskis Improvement Area from just south of 762 north around Maclean Creek, and up to the juncture with SE corner of Bighorn County as the western extent. This is a larger area of the KIA than included in the previous plan, as the committee felt it better represented the risk profile.
Pauli Kruger our emergency management coordinator has informed the committee that a number communities were successful in receiving the FRIAA $500 community FireSmart Program grants that she was coordinating. I know a number of subdivisions in West Bragg were/will be hosting events, and on June 8th I had the pleasure of attending and volunteering at our own Elbow Valley event. It kicked off at 10am with a quick safety orientation by our Community Staff for the volunteers. We then ventured into the mature Aspen Forrest hillside across from the Club House. Armed with nothing but our hands and feet, it was frightening that in the span of a couple hours we were able haul an absolutely huge amount of deadfall, standing deadfall, and dead-attached lower branches and brush down the hill and piled by the ditch for later chipping. Pauli was in the community giving her patented Emergency Preparedness workshop, and was also documenting. She sent some impressive pictures back to the FireSmart folks, to show their granting at work reducing the fuel load. This was very much a pilot for the community, and is a good example how volunteers can make an noticeable impact on common property maintenance, even without professional brush clearing – which also has its place.
Submissions for long-term Capital Projects Our new CAO continues to drive the County forward in “growing up” and getting better and better at managing our growth. This includes our approach to Budgeting, Asset Management and achieving Strategic Objectives. I submitted suggestions for consideration of two large capital projects. They were a 2nd Egress for Bragg Creek north of the Elbow River, and Active Transportation Network (bridge) along Highway 8 and connecting into Springbank to the north and Discovery Ridge to the east.
Contact: KRHanson@RockyView.ca or call 403.463.1166.
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