Over the next six months, Canmore
Council will consider the Area Structure
Plan (ASP) for the largest single development
proposal this community has seen:
all remaining Three Sisters Mountain Village
(TSMV) development.
At stake is whether, before development is
approved, the Province designates the remaining
Three Sisters wildlife corridors, including
the Stewart Creek section, in perpetuity as
required by the 1992 Decision of the Natural
Resources Conservation Board (NRCB), and
TSMV Site 9 is protected in perpetuity by a
conservation group.
Citizens can have input at two public hearings
(on the ASP and the Land Use Bylaw) and
three open houses (the Town’s Sustainability
Screening Report and two by the proponent).
Below is a guide to Canmore’s efforts to
ensure that these wildlife corridors are established
and protected in perpetuity – a 20-year
citizens’ campaign.
1990 Three Sisters Resorts (TSR) proposal for
the Stewart Creek Golf Course is approved,
where over 60 per cent of the land is wildlife
corridors.
1991 Proclamation of the NRCB.
1992 Following citizen concern at the NRCB
hearings, the board denies TSR’s proposal
to build in the Wind Valley and approves
it for Canmore’s Bow Valley, subject to 16
legally binding conditions and undertakings
including the provision of wildlife corridors
in “as undeveloped a state as possible” and
“consisting largely of trees, shrubs and shrub
meadow.”
NRCB gives Alberta Fish and Wildlife,
now Alberta Environment and Sustainable
Resource Development (AESRD), responsibility
to approve and designate wildlife corridors
on the TSR property.
1998 Citizens oppose the Three Sisters Master
Bylaw 1-98 that included all of the TSR property
in one bylaw. It is amended to bring each
new development to public hearings.
Citizens oppose Bylaw 2-98, which would
have zoned golf fairways and a driving range
in the wildlife corridors. It was not adopted.
The Province publishes the Bow Corridor
Ecosystem Advisory Group (BCEAG)
Guidelines for scientifically functional wildlife
corridors, where the minimum corridor width
is 450 metres below a slope of 25 degrees for a
one-kilometre corridor.
BCEAG guidelines adopted as policy in the
1998 Municipal Development Plan.
BCEAG standards win the Premier’s Award
of Excellence.
2000 Citizens oppose the Province’s draft
Conservation Easement Agreement to designate
wildlife corridors on Three Sisters land
because it would permit golf fairways, a golf
academy and a driving range in the corridors.
The citizen-funded Herrero Report applies
the 1998 BCEAG guidelines to the early
1990s Three Sisters wildlife corridors, and
finds them dysfunctional in width, slope and
hiding cover, where the earlier U.S. criteria
are inappropriate for Canmore’s mountain
terrain, winter conditions, multi-species, and
proximity to a populated area.
Conservationists petition the NRCB to
uphold its legal requirement that wildlife corridors
be provided “in as undeveloped a state
as possible.”
2001 Citizens criticize an inadequate revision
of the wildlife corridors proposed by TSMV
for Sites 1 and 3, leading to new Terms of
Reference for corridors in the Resort Area.
2002 Canmore council approves the subsequent
2002 Golder Report, including an
average “effective corridor width” of 635 m
(including a 35 m buffer) on the three km
corridor section in the TSMV Resort Area,
and sequencing building and human use as far
from the corridor as possible.
Three million dollar Federal G8
Environmental Legacy awarded to the 13 km
Three Sisters Along Valley Corridor, to build
two wildlife crossing structures.
Province’s Regional Wildlife Corridor Study:
Wind Valley/Dead Man’s Flats, based on two
years of scientific data validates the need for
a minimum corridor width of 450 m below a
slope of 25 degrees.
2003 Conservation Easement Agreement is
signed by the Province and TSMV protecting
600 m of the corridor in the Resort Area in
perpetuity, but not the 35 m buffer, which is
part of the corridor’s 635 m “effective width.”
In a letter to the Bow Corridor Organization
for Responsible Development (BowCORD)
and affiliated groups, the NRCB affirms it
“has a responsibility to see that the substantive
commitments, undertakings and conditions
with respect to wildlife corridors on the Three
Sisters property are met and this responsibility
will remain until the corridors are finally
designated for the entire property.”
2004 A letter to TSMV from the NRCB
affirms that “more recent scientific thought”
be used to designate the wildlife corridors
and that “final design (of the corridors) will
precede development plans for the (east) portion
of these corridor lands.”
Citizens call for the Golder 2002 land
use recommendations for effective corridor
width and sequenced land uses to be
applied to the TSMV Resort and Stewart
Creek areas.
Council approves the Area Structure Plans
for the Resort Area and Stewart Creek Golf
and Recreation Area, accepting “the Golder
2002 recommendations of the Golder Report
as a minimum.”
2005 TSMV and the Province negotiate a
2005 Provincial conservation easement on
95.9 hectares in the Stewart Creek Area,
including 63 h of the Stewart Creek Golf
Course and 32.9 h of Crown lease/public lands
– where over 60 per cent is wildlife corridors.
This agreement remains to be signed.
Citizens’ 20-year grass roots campaign supporting
the wildlife corridors is documented
by the Canadian Institute of Resources Law,
referencing “the ongoing public campaign…
co-ordinated since 2001 by Dr. Heather
MacFadyen, a Canmore resident.”
2006 Bylaw 36(Z)2004 zones the TSMV
Resort Area golf course, Golder’s second land
use, with a minimum building setback of 300
m “from any boundary of a designated wildlife
corridor” increasing “seasonal” functionality
of the 635 m corridor.
2007 TSMV and the Town sign a conservation
easement agreement on the 35 m along valley
corridor buffer in the resort area, completing
the corridor’s “effective width.”
2008 ASRD proposes completion of the
Three Sisters Wildlife Corridor on the basis
of Provincial scientific data since 2000, with
a minimum corridor width of 450 m below a
slope of 25 degrees.
2009 Town approves Terms of Reference for
the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
and Area Structure Plan (ASP) on all of the
remaining undeveloped TSMV property.
TSMV offers 400 acres of “Legacy Lands” in
Site 9 for protection in perpetuity.
TSMV goes into receivership, except for
the Stewart Creek Golf Course, which is now
under separate ownership.
2012 On Nov. 20, the Town approves the
Terms of Reference for the EIS and the
“Framework Agreement” where the receiver
(PricewaterhouseCoopers) proposes terms for
a new ASP for the remainder of the TSMV
property, including conservation of Site 9,
where the unprotected Wind Valley section of
the Along Valley Wildlife Corridor is located.
On Dec. 18, council approves the Terms
of Reference for the ASP, where “there is no
development... until Site 9 is transferred to a
conservation group agreeable to the Province
of Alberta, the Town and PwC for conservation
purposes in perpetuity.”
Heather MacFadyen, PhD, has served
on Canmore’s Environmental Advisory
Review Committee, the Board of Directors
of CPAWS (Calgary-Banff) and the Bow
Riverkeeper, and is Chair of BowCORD,
an intervener in the 1992 NRCB Hearings
on Three Sisters Golf Resorts Inc. In 2010,
MacFadyen received a national award from
Earth Day Canada for her conservation work
in the Bow Valley.
