Decision on Highland Park golf course redevelopment postponed for week

After sitting through a two-day public hearing, Highland Park residents will have to wait another week to learn the fate of a residential and commercial development proposed for a former golf course in their community.

In a 8-6 vote, council decided around 5 p.m. Tuesday to move a decision on the redevelopment to Monday’s council meeting.

The vote to table the matter occurred after Ward 13 Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart expressed fears the project could lose on a tie because Ward 3 Coun. Jim Stevenson was absent, meaning there was an even number of elected officials voting.

After a public hearing that went until 9 p.m. Monday and continued Tuesday at 1 p.m., Elise Bieche, president of the Highland Park Community Association, said residents will keep waiting.

“On one hand, it shows that council is really putting a lot of thought into this,” she said of the decision to table the matter.

“At the same time, it gives the applicant another week to go in ... and lobby the councillors and do some more convincing.”

The scheduled vote next Monday will mark the fourth time many community members have trekked to city hall for the project in recent months, after two meetings this week and attending a scheduled public hearing in July that was eventually delayed after three votes.

Vancouver-based developer Maple Projects Inc. wants to build up to 2,070 residential units on a 21-hectare inner-city site, south of McKnight Boulevard at Centre Street North, that operated as the Highland Park Golf Course until 2012.

After the plans were sent back to the drawing board in July for more consultation and better coordination with the future Green Line LRT, modifications including reducing building heights, adding housing diversity and increasing green space were made.

But many community members expressed major disappointment with the revised development Monday and so did elected officials, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who said Tuesday the project was “actually not that good.”

“It could be something much more creative, much more thoughtful, better for the developer and much, much better for the community,” he told council.

Nenshi said he was disappointed community volunteers said Monday they felt disrespected by the process and felt “the city was not a neutral party, or the city was not pushing for excellence.”

The mayor also expressed concern that members of the public told council at Monday’s public hearing the developer was lobbying councillors.

“We had two members of the public say that the developer told them that they weren’t interested in engaging because they already had the votes around the council table,” Nenshi said.

“I’m sure that’s not actually true, but I think we really have to think hard ourselves about the ways in which we intervene,” he said. “Certainly, if developers are wandering around saying, ‘I’ve got all these votes already and I don’t have to do better,’ that’s a very big problem.”