Kipp Study presented to county council

The Kipp study started in late 2019, with Oldman River Regional Service Commission (ORRSC) contracted to draft the study. Hilary Janzen, senior planner for the county, noted at the beginning of the presentation that the title of the Kipp report just says ‘study’, instead of ‘growth study’, like similar reports do for other hamlets in the county.

“Kipp was one that we weren’t sure how to really handle. Steve (Hardy, ORRSC planner) and I talked about it, and we decided it did deserve to have something in place, just because of it’s a historical area within the county,” said Janzen.

“But really, the Hamlet of Kipp as it stands today, it’s not really much of a hamlet.”

Kipp is currently the county’s smallest hamlet, and consists of one residence and 2.835 acres, with all lands in the hamlet owned by Alberta Transportation.

The lands have no municipal servicing, with potable water coming from the North County Rural Water Co-op and there is on-site septic for waste water. The lands are zoned under the Hamlet Direct Control District, which requires that any development permit application obtain approval from council.

The study found that Kipp is not an area for future growth within Lethbridge County, and it does not meet all of the legislative criteria of the Municipal Government Act (MGA) with regards to Hamlets.

According to the section 59(1) of the MGA, the council of a municipal district or specialized municipality may designate an unincorporated community within its boundaries to be a hamlet if it met the following condition laid out in section 59(2): “(a) consists of five or more buildings used as dwellings, a majority of which are on parcels of land smaller than 1,850 square metres, (b) has a generally accepted boundary and name, and (c) contains parcels of land that are used for non-residential purposes.”

As Kipp does not meet the MGA criteria for a hamlet, in the future, council could formally remove the Hamlet designation and rezone the lands from Hamlet Direct Control to the Rural Agricultural District.

“It was a little hub at one point in time, but that slowly has deteriorated, and then once Alberta Transportation started buying, purchasing the lands here, the fate was sealed.”

Council unanimously passed a motion to approve the report as presented.