The Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB) is winding down operations after the Province pulled funding and changed membership rules for the organization last year.
The eight-member board made the unanimous decision to shut down during a meeting on Friday and anticipates ending operations on May 1.
As part of winding down operations, the CMRB requested that the Regional Evaluation Framework and Growth Plan be immediately repealed.
The CMRB decision comes after the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Board announced that it will end operations on March 31.
Both organizations were thrown into turmoil when Ric McIver, Alberta’s minister of municipal affairs, said the Province will no longer provide funding and will make board membership voluntary.
The province was contributing about $1 million per year to the board in Calgary.
Friday's decision doesn’t mean that a coordinated approach to regional planning is taken completely off the table.
During the meeting, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek requested a motion that all members of the CMRB meet before May 1 to discuss an alternate approach to regional planning.
Gondek’s motion was unanimously approved.
“I think this sends a very strong signal that we are interested in working together, just not with a provincial partner,” Gondek said.
The CMRB was formed in 2018 to support development and economic sustainability in the Calgary region, but some rural members complained that urban municipalities had too much sway over development decisions in rural areas.
Member municipalities in the CMRB are Airdrie, Calgary, Chestermere, Cochrane, High River, Okotoks, Foothills County and Rocky View County.
