ClubLink files contentious plan to turn golf course into housing
ClubLink submitted to city hall Tuesday morning its controversial planning application to redevelop 71 hectares of land at the Kanata Golf and Country Club.
The golf company is working with Minto Communities and Richcraft Homes to turn the golf course into a suburban infill neighbourhood.
According to the development scheme, 53 per cent of the land would be redeveloped for homes, 20 per cent of the land would be for new roads and 27 per cent would be for green space, parks and ponds.
There would be 1,500 new residential units in a mix of single-family homes, townhomes and apartments.
ClubLink first floated its redevelopment intentions last December, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that the company submitted its planning application to city hall, formalizing the project.
Robert Visentin, ClubLink’s senior vice-president of investments, said the open space element of the development proposal would be “high-quality public green space, including new parks and trails that all residents can enjoy year-round.”
The privately owned golf course doesn’t offer those kind of amenities and land accesses today, Visentin said.
“There’s lots of positive things to take away from our plan,” he said. “Is it perfect? I would never say that any plan is perfect, especially when two people haven’t sat down and start to iron out what might be better about it.
“We’re prepared to do that, but we offered that to the community to start, and they didn’t take it, so we had to start somewhere. We put our best foot forward so far.”
The Kanata Lakes and Beaverbrook communities have been preparing for a fight, fearing that the golf course vistas that residents have come to enjoy will be paved over in the coming years.
The city has said it would go to court to ask for a ruling on a legacy agreement that protects green space in the community.
The so-called “40 per cent agreement” dates back to 1981 and the old city of Kanata. The former municipality signed an agreement with Campeau Corp. to maintain 40 per cent of the development area in Kanata Lakes as green space.
The amalgamated City of Ottawa assumed all of the legal arrangements signed by the former municipalities.
Last March, the city indicated it would ask the courts to make sure the green space agreement is still in force.
The deal gives the city the right to take over the golf course at no cost if the owner doesn’t want to continue running it. Only if the city doesn’t want to run the golf course can the owner apply to redevelop the land.
Visentin said ClubLink considers the deal “invalid.”
He noted that other municipalities have wanted to get out of the golf course business, including the City of Ottawa, which ended its operations of Pine View Golf Course in 2014.
A private operator now runs the course on National Capital Commission land.
Kanata North Coun. Jenna Sudds said on social media Tuesday that “the day I have been dreading has arrived.”
It wasn’t even a month after Sudds was sworn in as a rookie councillor that ClubLink announced its plans to bulldoze the golf course, kick-starting a major development controversy in her ward.
Sudds said she’s confident in the city’s legal position on its defence of the agreement. She said the ClubLink plan for the amount of open space is “misleading” since it wouldn’t come close to the provisions under the 40 per cent agreement.
ClubLink says the golf business is struggling, prompting the company to pursue redevelopment opportunities at the course.
Barbara Ramsay, chair of the Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition, said it’s good for residents that ClubLink has finally formalized its development proposal.
“ClubLink has finally teed off,” Ramsay said.
“It’s what we expected. We didn’t know when to expect it but we knew it was coming.
“It’s not better to swallow, but I for one think it’s good to have your opponent out in front of you.”
The coalition is ready to fight ClubLink’s plans, but Ramsay said residents are largely counting on the city to defend the 40 per cent agreement.
City solicitor David White said an external lawyer will finalize the city’s court application, which could take three weeks to file.