Winsport upset city rejected its Plan B
WinSport Canada has broken its silence after a second consecutive setback at city council, complaining that $3 million of planning work and studies have been for naught. The sports agency said in a news release Tuesday it’s “extremely disappointed” by the latest rejection of its bid to sell part of the Paskapoo Slopes, and now questions the city’s assertions that it values what the Canada Olympic Park group gives to Calgary. The sports agency had staked the financial viability of its expansion plans on being able to sell part of its eastern lands to a retail developer.
But council, unwilling to allow another big box retail project on the city’s western entryway along the Trans-Canada Highway, rejected WinSport’s rezoning bid in June, after lengthy attempts to make it suitable.
Plan B was to sell the site instead to the city as parkland, but after monthslong negotiations, council decided Monday there wasn’t money for that multimillion-dollar proposal either.
“We have gone down every road the city has asked of us, and still we are no further ahead,” WinSport CEO Dan O’Neill said in the news release.
In a widely circulated e-mail last week, O’Neill argued that selling the Slopes land to the city would “be the best solution for WinSport, the city and all Calgarians, and the east lands would remain undeveloped.”
Mayor Naheed Nenshi has insisted that council members “hugely support WinSport and all they do.” But he also argued that council rejected the big box zoning proposal on sound planning principles, and that parks expansion money was already tied up in other projects.
WinSport isn’t revealing its Plan C, and said it won’t comment beyond the words in its news release.