Development of ‘gopher-infested field’ closer
Dozens of northeast residents descended on City Hall on Monday where they spent hours arguing against a plan to build affordable housing on what the area councillor dubbed a “gopher-infested field” and the mayor called a “weedy piece of grass.”
Attainable Homes, a wholly owned subsidiary of the city that helps moderate-income Calgarians purchase their first homes by removing the barrier of a down payment, was before council with a proposed land redesignation that would pave the way for a 200-unit townhouse and apartment complex on an empty Martindale lot.
The 1.9-hectare grassy lot at the centre of the debate borders both the Genesis Centre recreation facility and area homes. Residents said while the space sometimes doubles as overflow parking for the bustling community hub, it’s mostly used as a popular green space in a community with a lot of people and not many parks.
But not everyone agreed with that description.
“This is a gopher-infested field that has never been used for green space that I know of,” said Ward 5 Coun. Ray Jones.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said there was a lot of misinformation surrounding the proposal.
“I’ve spoken to a lot of my neighbours in northeast Calgary and it’s very clear that people have been telling them it’s the big soccer field and park that’s being taken away, not the weedy piece of grass on the side of the parking lot,” Nenshi said.
Council eventually voted 8-6 late Monday in favour of moving the development ahead in principle, a decision that means there will still be opportunities down the road for changes to the land-use bylaw.
Nenshi said council’s decision also means a “very sticky legal mess” could loom if second and third reading get bumped past the October election and eight current elected officials aren’t present on the future council.
Elected officials spent more than three hours listening to citizens speak out against the proposal, including Gurmeet Bhatia, one of several residents that bemoaned a lack of engagement in the rezoning process.
“More than 6,000 people have signed this petition and they agree with me, we haven’t had enough engagement,” she said.
According to a city report, meetings with the Martindale Community Association about the project date back to early 2014, and Attainable Homes gathered community engagement at open houses that occurred in 2015 and March 2017.
Jones said there was ample ways for citizens to have their say about the proposal and he didn’t hear from residents until just recently.
John Harrop, the president and CEO of Attainable Homes Calgary, said in addition to the open houses, he appeared on radio with a translator to educate residents in the diverse community about the proposal.
He said Monday a minimum of half the units in the proposed 200unit development would be made available to Calgarians struggling to enter the housing market.
“We serve all quadrants of the city ... but our highest demand is in the northeast. New Canadians are a huge percentage of our purchasers. We like to have a constant supply of homes in our program in the northeast,” he said.
Harrop acknowledged residents’ desire for more parking in the area and said it’s possible Attainable Homes and the Genesis Centre could work out a solution in which parking is built underneath the housing units.
“It’s a costly way of doing it, but the reality is when parking is scarce, any solution is expensive,” he said.
Brad Anderson, the executive director of Genesis Centre, also spoke out against building homes on the lot, arguing the space would be better used for future expansions of the popular rec centre.
“We’re looking at how can we preserve space in the future for us to be able to expand and to meet the growing needs of the residents of northeast Calgary,” he said.