The Summer Village of Ghost Lake, a small community of around 80 residents, located about 25 kilometres west of Cochrane, sits on the shores of the eponymous Ghost Lake Reservoir.
Although colloquially called Ghost Lake, the body of water that the Summer Village backs onto is actually a reservoir, with the primary purpose of it being for flood control and hydro-electric power generation.
The land that makes up the shore of the reservoir is owned by the energy company TransAlta, and for years the Summer Village has leased the land from TransAlta to use for recreational purposes.
But now, after years and years of the steady status-quo, the Summer Village of Ghost Lake has filed an annexation application for a piece of land along the shoreline of the reservoir that has not been under the official jurisdiction of the Summer Village. The annexation precipitated a provincial government public hearing that could rewrite the municipal government relations between two municipalities.
On August 6, the Summer Village of Ghost Lake and the Municipal District (MD) of Bighorn will appear before a Land and Property Rights Tribunal (LPRT) public hearing which will help to determine the future of an annexation application made on behalf of the Summer Village.
However, unlike many annexations, where a growing urban municipality annexes land from a shrinking rural land mass, the Summer Village’s application is unusual, in the words of a consultant familiar with the application.
Greg Birch, a consultant hired to shepherd the Summer Village’s annexation request through the application process, says this annexation case has more to do with the issue of municipal government relations than urban growth.
Several years ago, Birch was hired by the Summer Village to prepare its Municipal Development Plan when he discovered that the Summer Village did not own a strip of land adjacent to the shore of the reservoir that backs onto the residential properties of the Summer Village–the land was instead under the jurisdiction of the MD of Bighorn.
That discovery was the “impetus for the annexation application,” Birch said. “What the Summer Village is seeking is improved government efficiency and effectiveness.”
Birch said the Summer Village wants to annex the land to cut down on municipal government bureaucracy that could be a hindrance to both the Summer Village and the MD of Bighorn.
He added that the annexation request stemmed from two primary reasons; that no municipality can have land within another municipality without being explicitly allowed by said municipality, and that the MD is responsible for emergency responses for the area in question.
Whenever the Summer Village wants to do something on the land–which it surrounds on all sides–the Summer Village has to ask the MD of Bighorn to allow it. A transfer of control from Bighorn to the Summer Village makes sense for both parties, Birch claimed.
“It’s more of a governance issue than a growth issue,” Birch said. “Logistically…the MD of Bighorn probably does not care very much. None of their policy documents are set up for that land.”
Birch said he gets the sense that the MD of Bighorn has no real interest in keeping control of the land that the Summer Village wants to annex. “The two municipalities agreed a few years ago that they could either address [the issue of land jurisdiction] and meet the Municipal Government Act regulations on an ongoing business, or it can be annexed and the MD would concede responsibility to the Summer Village.”
Through his work on the annexation application, Birch discovered that neither TransAlta nor any of the homeowners in Ghost Lake object to the Summer Village annexing the piece of shoreline. But the Stoney Nakoda First Nation does.
In a letter objecting to the proposed annexation dated March 2022, the Stoney Nakoda First Nation stated that the lands flooded by the Ghost Reservoir were removed from Stoney Indian reserves in 1929 for the sole purpose of a hydroelectric development. Once any such lands taken are no longer necessary for that purpose, they revert to the beneficial ownership of the Stoney Nakoda Nations, the letter argues.
“This reversionary right applies to some or all of the lands presently leased to the Summer Village,” the Stoney Nakoda letter reads. “The Stoney Nakoda are asserting ownership to the bed and waters of that portion of the now flooded Bow River which includes the subject matter of the proposed…annexation. In addition, mineral rights underlying this land are already wholly owned by a Stoney corporation, Woste Igic Nabi Ltd.”
The Stoney Nakoda’s objection necessitated the August 6 public hearing. However, Birch said the Summer Village and the MD of Bighorn believe the objection won’t change anything because the issues the Stoney Nakoda raise are more the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments.
Birch says the annexation is seen by both municipalities as an expedient way to fix a regulatory issue and government inefficiencies. “That’s what really is going on here,” he said.
