Yesterday, Council gave third reading to two cornerstone statutory documents, Bylaw 17.20 Municipal Development Plan (MDP) and Bylaw 16.20 Land Use Bylaw (LUB).

The Municipal Development Plan is the Town's visionary community plan. It provides high level guidance, goals and policy. The Drumheller MDP does what few municipal plans have managed to do: place disaster response and the changing climate directly at the core of its growth logic and long term vision to establish true resiliency. By placing the river at the heart of planning, the MDP supplants decades of reactive policies with bold, pro-active measures.

The LUB introduces many key innovations that will lead to development enablement versus development control. Twenty-one districts have been reduced to eight and further innovations related to signage and creating layers such as the unique neighbourhoods throughout the valley modernize Drumheller's ability to attract investment.

Chief Resiliency and Flood Mitigation Officer, Darwin Durnie explains "The passing of these bylaws truly changes the channel for the Town. To truly understand the impacts of flood mitigation, we needed to understand how it impacts our planning process. While we know the river can be a threat to us, for the majority of time, it's an asset and these documents reflect that fact."

Mayor Heather Colberg discussed the importance of these bylaws being living documents. "I'm pleased that there will be regular monitoring and reviews of the document, including the first review set for June 2021.This is the single largest public engagement process we've ever undertaken and I'm grateful for the input we received from residents and the time they took to review these documents. It's not the easiest read, but they are important to our future. We took a bold approach to this process, and the results will surely improve our ability to grow sustainably, resiliently and to attract investment."

"This is about making it easier for people to get their business up and running as fast as possible by accelerating processes and minimizing delays," states Darryl Drohomerksi, CAO.

These new bylaws will come into effect on March 1, 2021.