MD of Bighorn Council Adopts Trails Master Plan
John Watson
Rocky Mountain Outlook
MD OF BIGHORN – A revised Trails Master Plan was officially adopted by MD of Bighorn council, serving as the guiding document for future trails in the municipality.
Council approved the revised document at its May 13 meeting, after it had gone through revisions at previous governance and priorities committee meetings and a council workshop.
Reeve Lisa Rosvold thanked the municipality’s Community Services Board and municipal staff who worked on and reviewed the plan.
“I know I’m very excited to see this completed to help guide us into the future for trails and recreation in the MD of Bighorn,” she said. “I’m thrilled this was one of the first projects to come out of our Community Services Master Plan that was approved a year-and-a-half ago that recommended trails were the No. 1 item everyone in the MD would like to see established, developed, maintained and continued.”
Approval of the plan had previously been postponed in February, as council at the time had preferred to bring the document to another workshop prior to being approved.
A workshop was held Mar. 24, where council recommended several revisions, which were presented at the April governance and priorities meeting.
A report from Doug Saul, Bighorn’s community services coordinator, noted recommendations in the master plan will need community engagement and council approval before any money is spent to develop trails and run trails-related projects.
“Planning is expected in 2025 for those projects that have ongoing community and council support,” his report stated. “Budget allocations that would need to be approved would be proposed for the 2026 budget.”
At the April governance and priorities committee meeting, Rosvold and Coun. Alice James indicated during the discussion that the revised document contained items that addressed several of council’s previous concerns and was good to move forward for council approval.
Rosvold expressed concerns at the April governance and priorities committee meeting with a previous draft of the Trails Master Plan that it must contain annotation indicating, despite their proximity, the villages of Waiparous and Ghost Lake are not part of the MD of Bighorn.
The relevance of this distinction is to ensure that the MD of Bighorn’s Trails Master Plan will not have an impact on those municipalities’ respective jurisdictions.
Objections had also been raised regarding the suggestion of a proposed dog park on a four-acre piece of land behind the Shell gas station just off the Trans-Canada Highway in Dead Man’s Flats, as that plot was argued to be too valuable to withhold from potential developments.
“If we accept the report as presented, those recommendations would eventually work their way into the strategic planning documents for implementation, or there is other means,” said Shaina Kelly, MD of Bighorn’s CEO, at the April governance and priorities committee meeting.
“There are some that would become operational discussions for future budgets, some would become potentially capital items for future budget discussions, and some are going to require a larger plan, and anything that requires a larger plan would go into the strategic planning implementation process.”