Cypress County passed Airport Zoning Regulation Bylaw

By Justin Seward

Commentator/Courier
County councillors passed second and third reading of the Air Zoning Regulation Bylaw at their Oct. 6 meeting in both French and English.
Aviation safety falls under the jurisdiction of federal government through Transport Canada.
The authority could be given to Transport Canada to regulate the height of buildings, structures and objects that are adjacent to or in the vicinity of an airport to ensure the continued safety and operations.
Under the Aeronotics Act it states “Transport Canada is to delegate an authority for Airport Zoning Regulation to the provinces.”
Cypress County’s bylaw focuses on providing safety by regulating the heights of buildings, objects and structures in the vicinity of the airport, protection against electronic interferences, wildlife and bird habitat management and protects the land for future runway extension.
“We’ve got the document being couriered down to Ottawa and that’s the last part of the process,” said Jeffrey Dowling, the county’s director of municipal services.
“Once they get that registered , the federal government provides the county with notification that’s kind of officially in place.”
Dowling says it’s been a long undertaking as the City of Medicine Hat initially approached the county to implement separate bylaws for airport zoning regulations for the protection of the airport way back in 2012.
“That took a bit of process to get through that,” said Dowling.
“I think that was two or three years to get that developed . That all took place in 2014, and once that was in place it was a matter of actually being able to create these bylaws that Transport Canada would accept.”
The county was required create its own bylaw to protect the airspace in its jurisdiction of the Medicine Hat airport.
Those issues have been addressed through the Tri-Area Intermunicipal Development Plan since the initial implementation.
Medicine Hat initially passed their Airport Zoning Regulation Bylaw in September 2017.
Brief:
Hamlet speed limit
Council approved second reading of changing the hamlet speed limit from 50 down to 40 kilometres per hour.
“What happened with the speed limit bylaw is there was some discussion from council to possible include some other range roads and township roads,” said Dowling.
“Council decided hold off and postpone third reading of the bylaw so that public works can gather some more information. They basically gave until August of 2021 for public works to compile this information on some other potential roads that may also be included in the bylaw.”
The consideration of the change came after concerns that were brought forward to the county of speeding in the hamlets.

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