New podcast episode: Annexation and Amalgamation in Alberta with Sandeep Agrawal
EPISODE 11- Annexation and Amalgamation in Alberta with Sandeep Agrawal
Municipal boundary adjustments like amalgamation and annexation can have a significant impact on municipalities. So why do these boundary adjustments happen? Join Sandeep Agrawal to discuss the recently released book “Municipal Boundary Battles” and learn about the motivations behind boundary adjustments and how municipalities are affected.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CHECK OUT THESE RESOURCES:
Thank you, Sandeep Agrawal, for making this episode possible.
-------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:
Host: Hello and welcome to the Land Use Podcast. We are back after our summer hiatus and starting strong with an episode discussing the recently published book “Municipal Boundary Battles” funded by the Alberta Land Institute.
Before we start, I would like to respectfully acknowledge that the University of Alberta is located on Treaty 6 territory and respects the histories, languages and cultures of First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and all First Peoples of Canada, whose presence continues to enrich our vibrant community.
“Municipal Boundary Battles” is a collection of research from multiple contributors that explores the motivations, land use effects, and financial implications of municipal boundary adjustments across Canada. In an Alberta context, annexation in particular has become more and more common, so it's important that we understand why and the effect that annexation or amalgamation may have on our communities. Editor and contributor Sandeep Agrawal, who is also the director of the Alberta Land Institute, is here to discuss the book with us today.
Welcome back, Sandeep. This isn't your first rodeo, but for anyone who didn't listen to episode 4, could you please reintroduce yourself?
Sandeep: I'm Sandeep Agrawal. I'm the director of the Alberta Land Institute at the University of Alberta and a professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Alberta.
Host: Great. Thank you. So could you give us a brief explanation of what annexation is?
Sandeep: Sure. Yeah, annexation is basically when a municipality expands its boundaries by acquiring land from a neighbouring municipality. So in the case of Alberta for instance, annexation is initiated by a municipality by giving a notification to their adjacent municipality that it wishes to acquire a piece of land from them.
Host: So then what is amalgamation?
Sandeep: Amalgamation is where two or more municipalities come together and basically they merge together to form a new municipality. It could happen in two different ways. One is voluntary, where the municipalities agreed to merge together, or involuntary where, you know, the province or some other level of the government tells the municipality to do so.
Host: Great, thank you. So now that we have a bit of an understanding of these two different kinds of municipal boundary adjustments, how are they relevant in an Alberta context?
Sandeep: So the two types of municipal boundary adjustments are relevant to Alberta because Alberta municipalities are going through a number of boundary adjustments and it has been happening for quite some time. Most of the adjustments are to do with annexation and not so much with respect to amalgamation, although there is a growing interest on the amalgamation side.
Host: Okay. And was that kind of the impetus for the book?
Sandeep: Yes. So the book is about these two types of municipal boundary adjustments. While there are others that are out there, but these are the two main ones, not just in Alberta, but across Canada. And the book explores the motivations and intentions and land use effects and financial implications of when such boundary adjustments happen. And they tend to have tremendous impact on the growth of a municipality, its financial capability and especially how it delivers services to its residents.
Host: Okay, great. Thank you. Could you give me a bit of an overview of what kind of research is in the book?
Sandeep: Sure. Yeah. So this volume basically looks at some of the political motivations, things that have been sort of brewing up sort of underneath, some of the behind the scenes machinations, and it kind of documents the, I call it the battles that ensue between municipalities and among municipalities in terms of who's going to get what in terms of land. The other unique part of the book is that it focuses on mid-sized cities and small towns which are away from the metropolitan areas such as Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto or Montreal.
Host: So how does this research differ from other research that's been done on this topic?
Sandeep: So the key thing what we have uncovered is that although in the media we talk more or hear more about what happened in Calgary or Toronto, but most of the amalgamations and annexations occur in small towns and villages.
Host: So when looking at annexation and amalgamation, would you be able to speak to why a municipality may choose one over the other?
Sandeep: So if I take Alberta as an example, municipalities could choose to go for annexation or amalgamation, but the legislative process is such that it kind of favours annexation over amalgamation. The other thing is that if you look at what has happened across the country, most of the amalgamations happen because the province has told the municipalities that they need to amalgamate, so amalgamations have been forced upon municipalities as opposed to annexations.
Host: Interesting. So were there any particularly interesting findings that you'd like to share with us?
Sandeep: Yes. So back to what I was saying in terms of the motivations behind annexations, there are several, but the ones that we have uncovered are more to do with, first of all, acquiring land. So when you have more land based then it will eventually, hopefully, lead to a larger tax base. It's a form of management of growth, and as well as the politics that goes with it.
What we have uncovered, especially small municipalities in Alberta, that they have chosen the path of annexation because of a developer or a builder that have come to them and said, well, look, we're going to do a fairly large housing development or some sort of development for them. So there is this anticipation of large development which may ensue more growth has gotten municipalities into this annexation business that sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't. And what we have seen is that many times, this hasn't worked. That developer has promised something and then has walked away. Meanwhile, then municipality is saddled with a large tract of land that sometimes they cannot even manage.
Host: So we can already get a bit of a sense of it from your answer there. We see that municipalities are struggling with unforeseen circumstances from amalgamation or annexation. But could you talk a little bit more about why this research is so important?
Sandeep: So the research is important because of the frequency of municipal boundary adjustments that are happening and they have direct impact on the financial affairs of the municipalities. So as I mentioned before, if a municipality has annexed large tracts of land, meanwhile there is no growth happening, then they have that land which needs to be maintained in some form or the other. So again what I'm saying, there's a financial implication in a negative way.
The positive implication could be that if a development does happen, then it adds to the revenue base and the tax base for the municipality. If the growth does not materialize for a municipality after annexation, then it may have an impact on the quality of services that's being provided to its residents, because now the municipality has this extra land that needs to be managed. If there are roads in that land then needs to be cleared out, other kinds of management that need to go in, which municipality perhaps did not anticipate.
Host: So how could this research be used to inform policies that might address some of these issues?
Sandeep: So let me just start off where it began and then –
Host: Sure.
Sandeep: – hopefully get into the policy aspect of it. So I have been seeing boundary changes since I came to Canada in 1990. So I first came to Winnipeg in Manitoba, and there, at that time, Winnipeg was going through what we call as de-amalgamation or separation of two parts of Winnepeg. So Headingley, which was a part of Winnipeg, was seceding from Winnipeg. So that's another form of changes to the municipal boundary. And then, at that time, I was a student.
And moving further along, ‘96 – ’97, When I was at Ryerson University in Toronto, which is now Toronto Metropolitan University, and at that time Toronto had gone through amalgamation. Six municipalities were merged at the request of the Province of Ontario. When I moved to Alberta, this 2012 – 2013, Edmonton – where I got my second faculty position – Edmonton was in negotiations with or having conversations with Leduc County and Beaumont to annex land.
So I have seen all kinds of boundary adjustment in the course of my life. So the question that arose from all of those observations that I had were to do with, you know, why do these boundary adjustments happen? What are the land use outcomes of these boundary adjustments and how do they affect municipal finances? So that's where it actually began.
And in the case of Alberta, what I noticed was once the annexation is done or even amalgamation is done, for instance, nothing happens. Like usually there is an application that comes to the board that decides, this is the quasi judicial tribunal that decides as to how or whether the annexation will go through or an amalgamation will go through. And there are things that annexing municipality may put in, whether it's about how the development will happen, what they see getting out of this annexation and things of that in nature. Once the annexation is done, there is no evaluation as to whether annexing the municipality lived up to those promises. So, as I mentioned before, they might have anticipated growth in the lands that they were acquiring, but it is possible nothing happened post annexation. So I was looking at the efficacy of the policy that leads to annexation. And so that was sort of the precipice of this book.
Host: Okay, so then the next part would be, do you think that there are policy changes that could be made to support municipalities facing these kinds of issues?
Sandeep: So annexation in Alberta has generally led to mistrust between municipalities because, as I mentioned before, annexation is basically taking over someone else's land, whether the other municipality is giving up that land voluntarily or not. So there may be ways through legislation where the parties could be brought together in a much more collaborative way to adjust their boundaries. There needs to be, certainly, a process in place for more amicable form of annexation and also for amalgamation. Because what we have witnessed across Alberta is small, towns and villages are becoming less and less financially viable. And I'm saying not all, but some. And in such cases, perhaps amalgamation is the way to go. And I do see a need for province to step in to see if amalgamation is a much more feasible and a viable route to take than any other.
Host: Okay. That makes sense. So do you have any recommendations for how other researchers could build off of the research in this book?
Sandeep: So this book is for students, faculty who are in political science, urban planning, geography. So these are the folks who can sort of see what happens when boundary of a municipality changes. In terms of further research, there's a lot that can be done. Obviously we have limited our research to Alberta, but then there's the rest of the country where such research hasn't been done to the extent that it should be done. I know Ontario has gone through a number of amalgamations and so has Quebec and parts of Atlantic Canada and more and more research is being done in this area, but certainly not to the extent as we see in the United States for instance. So looking at different aspects of municipal boundary adjustment, whether it's the political, social, economic or any other dimensions of adjustment.
Host: Okay, great. Well, that's pretty much all of my questions, but is there anything else that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to or any concluding thoughts that you have?
Sandeep: I don't know if it is a concluding thought, but I'll add another point.
Host: Sure.
Sandeep: So we have seen that in Eastern and Atlantic Canada there have been more and more amalgamations, and these amalgamations have been forced upon municipalities by the provincial government. And it is possible that it has happened because of sort of liberal belief within the public where they see that there's stronger government and regulatory control is needed to bring more efficacy in municipal services or financial services and things of that in nature as opposed to what we see in Alberta, Saskatchewan, where it's much more on the annexation side. And annexation is more about two or three municipalities sort of figuring it out and has very little role of the provincial government.
So if you look at, you know, parts of the country, perhaps it's the conservative versus liberal belief system that has fuelled the type of municipal boundary adjustments that municipalities have gone through.
Host: Okay. Interesting. One last thing before I let you go. Where can people access the book?
Sandeep: Oh yes, the book is published by the University of Alberta Press. E-copy, that is the PDF copy, is available for free. And those folks who wish to get a printed copy, then they could go to either Amazon or the University of Alberta Press website and buy from there.
Host: And I'll add that link in the description. So thank you so much Sandeep. That is it for this month's episode. If you enjoyed the episode, you can leave a like, a comment and subscribe to stay up to date with all of our latest episodes. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn, and sign up for our newsletter on albertalandinstitute.ca.
I also wanted to mention that we are starting a series of free lunchtime webinars. Our first webinar will be on October 1st at noon. Guest speakers Jen Beverly, a professor here at the University, and Dan Schroeder, who works for Alberta Forestry and Parks, will be with us discussing their recently published research, Alberta's 2023 wildfires, context factors and futures. So make sure to register on our website. Again, that's albertalandinstitute.ca, thank you so much for listening to the Land Use Podcast.