Councillors green-light contentious Highland Park property re-development

The former Highland Park Golf Course is one step closer to becoming the city’s newest subdivision after councillors voted in favour of its re-development.

A Vancouver-based developer is looking to build up to 2,070 residential units on the inner-city golf course.

It’s not a done deal just yet, a ground water study will have to be completed first. Officials expect that will take roughly a year to complete and those results will determine if they move ahead with building permits.

The proposal passed second and third reading on a 9-6 vote with the mayor and area councillor both voting against the motion at council on Monday.

“I think on big projects like this, it’s really incumbent on us to build something really good, something that makes the community better,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “And in this particular case, we have a community that’s already deficient in park space, a community that already has some storm water and drainage issues and this was a real opportunity to fix those things and create some really desirable housing to attract people to this really wonderful neighbourhood.”

Nenshi says the plan fell short of getting them there and in listening to the debate, he’s of the belief that many of his fellow colleagues felt the same way.

“I think you had a few members saying it’s a bad plan but we can fix it through an area redevelopment plan process if we pass this today where others said we should let this fail today and fix it and I sided with the latter group,” he said. “They’re both awful but in this case, my challenge is that by giving the land use, you have effectively removed any incentive for the landowner to come to a new planning process, I’m not sure why’d they want to go through all this again?”

The mayor adds he’s worried about the ground water but adds the good news is no shovels can touch the dirt until they get those results.

“It’s sometimes funny on council, maybe the other councillors have more information than I do and I don’t know (what happened), needless to say I’m disappointed and I think that the community has lots of legitimate questions and concerns, especially around the water issue,” said Councillor Sean Chu.

“The community came to me and we worked together and we came up with the five amendments and we got 80 per cent, which is a lot as you see in many other developments that don’t get 80 per cent. Did we do enough? Probably not.”

Council chambers were full of northeast residents, many of whom left angry and disillusioned by what they saw Monday afternoon.

“Bitterly disappointed in the outcome, I thought that City Council had an opportunity here to do something special, leave a legacy to the city and I believe we’re going to have a horrible development that doesn’t address any of the concerns of our community, I’m bitterly disappointed,” said Highland Park resident Terry Wagler.

“I’d have to agree, I think council had a chance to put a feather in their cap to show the city how much green space is required and needed and they just totally dropped the ball here, I’m disappointed as well,” said Clay Wagler.

“I’m very disappointed, there was an opportunity here to make something amazing for the city of Calgary, for north central Calgary, to deal with the storm water issues, to deal with the overland water issues, there are beautiful springs on the site that they’re all planning to destroy, there are wetlands in there that they deem of no value, it’s very, very disappointing,” said Ann Naumann. “The community would have been in support of a better plan, that’s not what we have.”

“I’m shocked and appalled by the lack of vision demonstrated by council, shocked!” said Natalie Robertson. “I think the fact that we had a city councillor that was really unengaged in the whole development for years, didn’t actually put it on his website, doesn’t seem to know any of the terminology that was necessary in this development, just really didn’t keep track of anything, I think that lack of leadership shown by Sean Chu, really, really let the community down.”

“It’ll never be a done deal until we see the first shovel in the ground, there is always hope! Hopefully more rational people will come forth and see the questions that aren’t answered, the studies that need to be done and hopefully better minds will prevail,” said Donna Stefura. “It’s an election year alright and there’s going to be some changes, there is a few that should be looking for other jobs right now.”