The year ahead looks like a busy one for the Foothills MD.

Reeve Larry Spilak expects to be able to release more information to the public in the early part of the new year about the annexation discussions with Okotoks.

He says they're also dealing with the ever-growing city of Calgary and the inter-municipal development plan.

"That will outline the area, it'll be described as the Growth Plan Area," Spilak says. "That basically as a rule going forward will be the area that Calgary will annex."

He says those are two of the more challenging items to be dealt with along with the Calgary Regional Plan which he wants to see remain as it is.

"The new provincial government has stated simply that they would like to see it go back to a Growth Management Board," he says. "Now for those of us who were around 20 years ago what that indicates is that there would be one member from each municipality sitting on this board, so if someone in the MD were to ask for some sort of sub-division or re-designation it would have to go through that Growth Management Board to be approved."

Spilak says that would give people like the member from Airdrie a say in development in the Foothills MD and vice versa.

He says the MD finds that to be unnerving and he's like to see it go back to the voluntary membership along with the results of the last mediation which included autonomy on the MD's lands and a consensus vote in order to change that.

Spilak says collaboration between the MD and towns and communities will continue to be important in the coming year because as a group they'll be better able to provide the services residents want and deserve.