NIMBY neighbours leave little room for compromise on camp
John-Mark Gal and Pat O’Connor are evangelical pastors with a dream. For two years, they’ve been working to turn a long-vacant summer camp on the banks of the Sturgeon River near Fort Saskatchewan into a year-round educational retreat, one they call the Hope Adventure Centre. They want to work with a very specific group of students: teens and young adults who’ve aged out of the foster care system.
There are few programs, they note, for youth ages 18 to 24 who’ve grown up in government care and are transitioning to life as independent adults.
At-risk youth would spend 10 days working on a theatre production, learning to make costumes and sets, to work backstage, and to perform. Then, they’d be flown to Hawaii for a 10-day outdoor tropical adventure.
Each student would pay $4,000 for the three-week program, though Gal and O’Connor expect those costs would largely be covered by government bursaries or endowment grants.
“They need help,” said Gal. “They need a leg up. They’ve been beaten down. We’re not going to give them false hope. We’re going to give them the tools they need to get on with life.”
With support from generous donors, they’ve have spent more than $1 million fixing up the 20-hectare site, which was once home to the popular Boysdale Camp.
When Boysdale opened 70 years ago, the property was far from residential development. But there’s now a subdivision next door, and eight houses back onto the camp.
According to Gal, all applicants to their program would be prescreened for criminal records. Alcohol and drugs would be banned from the site. Each class would have only 15 students, who would be supervised on a 3:1 staff ratio.
Still, many neighbours are furious and frightened.
Tuesday, more than 50 people crowded into the Sturgeon County council chambers in Morinville, demanding the county close the camp before it opens.
“Our safety and our way of life are at risk,” community spokesperson Cindy Cook told council, her voice quavering with passion.
“We are asking council to issue a stop-work order until further review can be completed.”
Cook doesn’t live in the area. But her son and three granddaughters do.
She doesn’t believe they’ll be safe if former foster children, some of whom, she noted, may have been living on the street, are allowed to attend the camp.
She’s also worried about traffic, noise and possible damage to the river.
Her son, D.J. Andrews, put things more bluntly.
“I’m worried about the security of my family, the safety of my family. My house backs right onto the camp. There’s not even a fence between us,” he told me.
“I don’t want anyone stealing my truck and I don’t want anyone breaking into my home. I have three daughters. I don’t want issues.”
Andrews stressed he’d be opposed to the camp even if it served only younger children, as it originally did.
“I’m not in support of that running at all, not in my backyard. Why does it have to be in my backyard?”
When I pointed out he’d chosen to buy a house next to land that had long been zoned for a camp, Andrews bristled.
“That place wasn’t running when I bought it. I didn’t buy a house that backed onto a camp. They bought a camp that backed onto my backyard.”
According to Cook, the only plan the community will accept from the county would be to turn the whole camp property into a protected environmental area.
“I don’t know if there’s a legal basis. But we have hired a lawyer.”
To be honest, Gal and O’Connor’s program sounds a bit zany. Absolutely, older youth transitioning out of government care need solid support and training if they’re going to succeed. I’m dubious, though, that spending $4,000 per person on theatre therapy and a Hawaiian holiday is the best use of public dollars.
And if this camp were in my backyard, I might have questions about noise and safety, too.
Yet Gal and O’Connor have every legal right to operate their camp on this site. The land is expressly zoned for this purpose. Whatever prejudices some neighbours have about former foster children doesn’t change that.
Which leaves Sturgeon County caught in the headlights, with neighbours demanding action that council has no legal power to take, and with councillors seemingly afraid to stand up for the Hope Adventure Centre.
“Sturgeon County has no intention to issue a stop-work order,” Sheila Moore, who speaks to the county, told me via email Wednesday. The Hope Adventure Centre, she said, was working within the scope of its existing permits.
Mayor Alanna Hnatiw wouldn’t agree to speak to me about this issue.
But at Tuesday’s public meeting, she suggested mediation might help.
“It’s important to protect the fabric of the community, but also to be an inclusive community,” she told the packed council chambers.
“We hope to be able to bring this matter to an end, because the longer this goes on, the more divisive this will become.”
But mediation implies there’s a middle ground to find. On the banks of the Sturgeon? I’m not sure there is.
I don’t want anyone stealing my truck and I don’t want anyone breaking into my home. … I don’t want issues.