Despite quite a few Hees Estates residents coming out to protest the development, the proposed Riverview Estates development passed all three readings during last Tuesday’s town council meeting.
It was decided that the town would hold a second public hearing after there was discussion between residents and councillors regarding the development without including the chief administrative officer (CAO) or the developer — contrary to municipal regulations.
Many of the discussion points were similar to what was discussed during the Oct. 6 meeting: the soil composition, the traffic assessment and, of course, the inclusion of multi-family units — condos — in the development.
“People that move into a single-family-dwelling area do not want, or dislike being near multi-family dwellings,” said a Hees Estates resident.
“There’s more noise. There’s more activity going on. Right now we have a quiet community … to develop this land into more than an R2 (single family dwellings) is going to disrupt the who area and it’s going to depreciate our homes that are there now.”
The inclusion of the multi-family units is in compliance with the town’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP), which states every new development needs to have at least 80 per cent single family dwellings and 20 per cent multi-family. This was also a sticking point for the residents as it appeared to some of them that the councillors were focusing more on that, rather than what’s “best for the community.”
“I’m concerned that the town is under the obligation to make a decision in favour of the developer and rezone to R6, R7 because of the Municipal Development Plan,” said a resident.
“(But) it’s at the discretion of the council to make a decision that’s best for the town and I think the decision of that magnitude should be made based on it’s merit and not what’s written in the plan that not everybody at this table understand fully.”
This was something that Jane Dauphinee, a planner with Municipal Planning Services, strongly disagreed with. Her opinion boiled down to what’s the point of having a planning document, if you’re not going to use it?
“Technically, according to the legislation, a municipality isn’t bound by it’s own planning documents,” she explained. “However, there is very little value in having a planning document if you don’t abide by the provisions that you’ve developed within your planning document.”
The final problem that the residents had was that in the past, the council had upheld the zoning of an industrial area even though Hees Estates residents weren’t pleased. They believed that a “precedent” was set — if they uphold the zoning in one issue, they should uphold it in them all.
“The precedent was set that an opportunity came along and a business developed and Northwest Fabricators became what it is today and it’s based on the fact that it was an industrial zoned (area),” said John Ellison, a Hees Estates resident.
“We bought knowing that, we also bought knowing that to the south of us is R2.”
In regards to the traffic impact assessment, which focused on 40 Ave into Highway 2, the residents didn’t believe that it was thorough enough.
“That intersection is unsafe,” said Ellison. “Just this week the two of us in a vehicle, we were halfway out in the lane on the southbound lane, because there was two transports parked parallel beside each other in the truck area.”
He continued: “It’s wrong and to think we’ll be putting in another 400 or 500 people in that location up there to use that same intersection is just the wrong thing to do.”
Ryan Batty, a transportation engineer from Associated Engineering disagreed. According to the assessment that they’d done — and the one accepted by Alberta Transportation — the intersection, with a few additions done by the government, will be able to support the additional people.
After the public hearing, the councillors discussed what should be done about the proposed development, particularly in regards to the inclusion of the multi-family units. Coun. Tanu Tyszka-Evans applauded the previous council for including them in the MDP.
“The growth of this community is paramount to our future,” he said. “The new development includes aspects for those entering the housing market, those who are currently home owners looking to upgrade and those exiting the market.”
Coun. Tim Verhaeghe, on the other hand, brought forward the complaint that the development doesn’t, in fact conform to the 80/20 rule, but, in fact, is closer to 75/25.
“This plan does not comply with the MDP. The MDP says 80/20, we heard 75/25 and I am being that black and white on this,” he said.
“It does not comply with the MDP, therefore I will not support second reading.”
Although Coun. Joanne Peckham stated that council needs “to remind ourselves, too, that we need to work for the benefit of our entire community,” which was a running theme that evening, in the end the motions to pass both the Area Structure and the rezoning passed. Only Peckham and Verhaeghe voted against it.
