Lacombe County was awarded the 2024 Planning Award of Merit for Implementation Success by the Alberta Professional Planners Institute.   

The award recognizes the county’s annual review process of the Municipal Development Plan and the Land Use Bylaw as a collaborative approach to ensure planning framework is up-to-date and aligns with the community's vision.   

The award was presented to Lacombe County Planning Services staff during an award luncheon on July 10, at the Canadian Institute of Planners and Alberta Professional Planners Institute Conference in Edmonton.  

“When we originally contemplated the idea of doing an annual review in 2017, we couldn’t find any other case studies where an annual review approach was used as a successful implementation tool in Alberta,” said Cajun Paradis, Senior Planner. “Nonetheless, we decided to take the bold move to incorporate an annual review requirement into our Municipal Development Plan. Essentially, every year, we give our Plan a report card showing whether its policies have met expectations. Fast forward six years later, this has proved to be a highly effective and successful tool that has allowed us to continuously improve and refine our planning policy to be current and relevant.”  

Every year, planning services staff collect data to evaluate whether each policy of the Municipal Development Plan is performing how it’s intended. Based on the results, and submissions received by the community, staff propose changes to the plan to address policy shortfalls.   

The review allows the county to monitor the progress on important priorities and encourage engagement on policy topics.   

“While almost all municipalities strive to create plans that are ‘living documents’, Lacombe County took this to full realization,” said Tim Timmons, County Manager. “In 2017, County Council and Administration saw the immense dialogue being generated from the public engagements of our Municipal Development Plan and Land Use Bylaw update and committed to keeping the momentum alive by continuously refining and updating our plans to align with ongoing trends and the vision of our community.”  

The plan aims to protect large tracts of agricultural land in the county from loss and fragmentation while providing development opportunities.   

While the Land Use Bylaw places all land in the county into land use districts, outlining developments that can be considered in each district.  

“While all municipalities in Alberta are required to have a municipal development plan and land use bylaw, Lacombe County is one of the few, if not only, municipality in Alberta that has incorporated a systematic process to review these documents every year,” said Dale Freitag, Director of Planning Services.  

“On behalf of Lacombe County, I would like to thank the Alberta Professional Planners Institute for recognizing the hard work and dedication of our Planning Services Department in developing and executing this annual review process,” said Barb Shepherd, Reeve. “We hope that the recognition of this work through the Award of Merit will encourage other municipalities to explore similar approaches that can help revitalize their municipal plans.”  

 

 

**With information provided by Lacombe County.