Districts, county threaten to kill metropolitan planCALGARY - The rural communities that occupy the vast majority of the 12,000 square kilometres in the Calgary area are demanding make-or-break changes to a proposed plan that would chart population growth and water servicing across the region.

Politicians from cities, towns, villages and rural districts around Calgary will meet today in Cochrane to address or at least ease concerns before a pivotal final vote next Friday on the legally binding Calgary Metropolitan Plan.

Calgary council and others from Strathmore to Canmore and Nanton to Crossfield have come out in favour of the plan as is or with small tweaks.

But the Municipal Districts of Foothills and Rocky View, along with Wheatland County, have sharp oppositions, including to the plan's decision to hinge regional waterline access to the construction of urbanized, high-density neighbourhoods.

But the more emotion-provoking issue is a regional decision-making system that requires the City of Calgary's approval for all votes to succeed.

The vote requires approval of members who host at least half the population of the Calgary area, but also 12 of 17 municipal members --which also means the region's towns and cities can make decisions without the OK of any of the three rural governments.

"We have the land mass, but we don't have the voice," Rocky View Reeve Lois Habberfield said Thursday.

She said the voting structure is one of the council's "hills to die on" --if the Calgary Regional Partnership doesn't agree to changes, Rocky View won't sign on.

The same goes for Wheatland and Foothills.

Hundreds of residents attended a meeting about Foothills reaction to the plan Wednesday in Okotoks.

"Every single person that stood at the mike was opposed," said resident Jody McPherson, who organized a "No Calgary Veto!" tailgate protest before the meeting.

She and others have suggested the plan's call for urban-style growth in the next 60 years south on Calgary's south boundary amounts to endorsing more urban sprawl.

The plan's advocates, including Airdrie mayor and alliance chairwoman Linda Bruce, say it's designed to concentrate future growth in certain areas and corridors that will let the region co-operate on straightforward regional mass-transit lines, sewage and water systems.