ATHABASCA — An unauthorized RV park in the Wandering River area has now been brought into compliance, but the required land use change to complete the process brought the old issue back to Athabasca County's new council.
After the unauthorized campground was discovered in 2020 west of the Hamlet of Breynat, 59 kilometres northeast of Athabasca, Athabasca County's planning and development department worked with the landowner to bring the property into compliance and requested an amendment to the land use bylaw to change it from agricultural to recreational commercial, prompting some councillors at the Jan. 11 Athabasca County council meeting to question how many other times land was rezoned after the fact.
“Has there ever been any sort of campground, recreational-type density study in that area to determine how all of the other residential people are being impacted,” said Coun. Tracy Holland.
Coun. Gary Cromwell is also the fire chief for Wandering River and one of his concerns which he ran on is ensuring campgrounds are safe with adequate egress and fire suppression.
“We as a county need to look at policy, we need to look at procedure, we need to make a change to policy and procedure in ways of really following up more and having a better idea of what is going on once we rezone these lands,” he said.
Cromwell would like to see more oversight by the county to catch unauthorized development.
“Some of these areas have been expanding and changing with really no input, no knowledge to the county,” he said. “When a permit comes in like this one it will tell you that things are very quickly spiralling and can change very, very quickly.”
While he doesn’t want to discourage commercial growth, Cromwell wants to ensure the infrastructure is keeping up to ensure the proper amenities and services are in place.
“One of the things I'm going to talk to you guys about a lot as we go forward is the need to upgrade our infrastructure, sewers, lagoon etc. before we can start adding more campgrounds, more things like that,” said Cromwell.
Sleeper communities like Wandering River have proven a hot spot for people, especially during COVID-19, as a place to get away while national and international travel is restricted, growing the summer population by hundreds or even thousands of people and without knowing all the unauthorized campgrounds it is difficult to get an exact number.
“I think moving forward, we have to really have a solid look,” he said. “Again, it changes the dynamic 1,000 per cent in our part of the county out here and we need to have a stronger, more informed look moving forward.”
Holland wondered if a density study could be done, and it was put on the list for budget consideration.
"We are supposed to be definitely keeping in consideration our agricultural land and I was just curious, is there a possible way of finding out how much of that agricultural land has been rezoned in the last, say, five years,” said Holland. “How much we're losing out in that area and is that also a concern of the residents in Wandering River?”
For now, council asked administration to provide a list of land north of the Lac La Biche River which has been rezoned from agricultural to either recreational campground or campground commercial.
