Harvest Hills development gets Calgary Planning Commission approval

The Calgary Planning Commission has approved a controversial plan to develop the former Harvest Hills Golf Course.

The developer is asking to build 716 homes on 64.88 acres of land.

It will go to council for public hearings and final approval on October 3.

In the meantime, concerned citizens aren’t giving up the fight against it, saying they won’t stand for the loss of green space, trees and the densification of the area.

President of the Northern Hills Community Association Rick Lundy says despite some amendments, he’s frustrated and disappointed it’s going to council at all and will be filing a grievance with the Ethics Commission.

“Throughout this whole process it was very obvious that the city’s processes are flawed, there’s no question about that,” he said. “This application did not meet many of their policies.”

He believes the project is in direct opposition of the Municipal Development Plan.

“This is not what we call ‘complete communities’, it’s not at all,” explained Lundy. “The city is just taking their policies and interpreting them as they want.”

Chris Ollenberger with Quantum Place Developments says they worked as closely as they could with the community and advised residents to provide as much input as possible.

“I think they were actually very proactive and put a lot of good energy into working with us on the plan, but that doesn’t mean they’d like to see it go forward,” he explained, adding they’ve done as much as they can as a developer.

Ollenberger concedes the community association is just acting in what it believes is the best interests of affected residents.

“Clearly some people don’t like change and this change is dramatic for a community this size, I don’t think there’s anybody who disagrees with that,” he said. “We’re hoping to continue the work. We engaged them before we even applied. We actually did start with a blank sheet of paper.”

He says they still plan to meet with the commission and the association again.

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