Overview

This one-year research project focused on property rights and land use regulation in Alberta, and had three objectives:

1. To analyze the constitutional, legal and regulatory frameworks that demarcate private property rights in land in Alberta.

2. To describe the present scope of Alberta’s property rights system and to identify key issues arising from recent land use initiatives.

3. To develop a nontechnical summary of the above to serve as a resource for stakeholders, policy makers, and land users in general.

The project consisted of three phases. The first phase provided a comprehensive review of the relevant legislation, case law and academic literature, and included a comparison of the Alberta framework to other relevant jurisdictions.

The second phase focused on the production of a summarized report of findings to the Alberta Land Institute, along with a shorter plain language guide.

In the final phase, the findings were disseminated in scholarly articles and conference and workshop presentations.