Doing things differently
Goats keep weeds at bay at the mixed-use community of University District
Developing for sustainability isn’t just about buildings with energyefficient construction, but the roots of the community as well.
This is West Campus Development Trust’s approach to its mixed-use community of University District, and why, earlier this month, hundreds of goats were seen stomping and chomping through its northwest Calgary land.
For the second consecutive summer, the developer tapped Langdon area-based Baah’d Plant Management and Reclamation for its weed-control needs.
Nearly 400 goats, including about eight breeds, horned in on weeds along the southern stretch of University District — an 81-hectare community surrounded by the University of Calgary ’s main campus, Alberta Children’s Hospital, Foothills Medical Centre and McMahon Stadium.
“(Using) goats for pest control is really about living our values,” says Emily Allert-House, communications and community engagement lead with West Campus Development Trust, pointing to the community’s LEED-ND (neighbourhood development) platinum certification. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is a widely used rating system.
“The goats provide the ability to really target the weeds that we want to control in an organic way,” she says. “There are all sorts of benefits when it comes to sustainability. Lower emissions, reduced carbon footprint, things like that.
“Overall, it’s (also) an opportunity for us to live out our value of doing things a little differently. How can we innovate on what’s being done? How can we do things that are in alignment with what our community needs and wants?”
University District — designed to be highly walkable — is a community with multi-family residential development. Its builder group includes Brookfield Residential, Truman Homes, and Avi Urban.
Baah’d Plant Management and Reclamation owner Jeannette Hall has seen growing interest in her four-legged weed-control team, which is also tackling projects in locations such as Chestermere Lake, Confluence Park, and Ralph Klein Park. Onlookers find the goats intriguing.
“This is probably one of our busier sites,” Hall says of the people who live nearby who come to watch the goats in action. “Hundreds of people every day come out.”
Hall’s working goats range from about four months to 12 years old. The older goats play an important role, pointing the up-and-comers in the right direction, says Hall.
“They ’re the ones that are teaching the young goats what to eat,” she says. “A goat only learns to eat what its mom ate. So if you took a farm goat, which has only been exposed to certain weeds in its own pasture, to an industrial site with a whole other whack of weeds, they’re not going to eat those weeds because they don’t know what they are. When you have an older goat that’s been exposed to a whole bunch of weeds, she’s going to teach the younger goats what to eat.”
University District is one of the finalists in the New Community Development category at the BILD (Building Industry and Land Development) Alberta Awards, set to be announced on Sept. 14 in Jasper.
People interested in an apartment-style condo or townhome at University District can visit its discovery centre at 4410 University Ave. N.W.