City Notebook: Putting the sand in your sandwich

By COLLIN GALLANT on August 20, 2022.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant

Nothing puts the sand in people’s sandwiches more than development proposals in mature neighbourhoods, a fact proven again this week by a debate and ultimate denial of a permit to build a new, high-end home a corner of the Southeast Hill.

Neighbours near the south end of the Sixth Avenue Trail say it puts their own homes at risk from steep coulee walls nearby. Engineering reports state its possible to tear down the existing vacant home and shore the new home without greater disturbance.

There are a couple of intersecting issues here (no pun intended), the first being the city’s own, longstanding plan is to boost this sort of redevelopment, but council seems to get the horns hung on it one way or the other.

For 10 years the clear message to the planning department has been to find a way to make such proposals happen, safely of course, but with council’s “strategic direction” top of mind. That stresses boosting the tax base as top consideration.

Former Mayor Ted Clugston – desperate to transform city hall’s lurking, business-unfriendly image – described it as moving from a stance of “no” to one of “yes, if…”

It certainly produced a few plans that seemingly contradicted zoning, policy and precedent, but it didn’t always work. Council has been just as likely to agree or disagree to four-plexes on home lots or homes on apartment lots, adding the idea goes too far or not far enough.

Similarly, the lot in question this week was once considered a target for purchase by the city to be rolled into nearby environmental reserve space.

The elderly occupant finally decided to examine a standing offer from the city in 2016, but council of the day pulled it back stating the new push was to encourage unique development. (Two years later an inventory of “surplus” city land was being marketed).

The end result this week is that the 2016 council said they wouldn’t buy the lot, and the 2022 council has said the new owner can’t build on it.

It’s not so dire, as there’s chatter the proposal may be back after a six-month holding period, but in the public’s mindset, there’s been little ground gained in revamping the image of a city hall and council that can’t get planning right.

Storm cleanup

Every major windstorm is sure to blow a couple of questions to the top of the heap.

“Why not bury the lines?” is usually No. 1.

In most folk’s mind it seems like a waste to re-string them, and why not bury them then and there, like it’s done in Ross Glen?

Well, they city spent a fair chunk of change redoing the lines in Ross Glen about five years ago, and one would have to sympathize with those watching the surveying and trenching crews come in while deep freezes are off.

Some bright news however in the grander picture.

The province passed new regulations this last winter to help knit major battery storage onto the Alberta grid. Managing the networks ebbs and flows, power pulls and pushes.

Similarly, local power distribution planners are examining whether localized storage systems on the city’s internal power grid might make better sense than building out new redundant lines.

Thought for the day

Vanilla is produced from a most exquisite orchid grown in Madagascar, one of the most remote and exotic places on Earth. Yet, it is a metaphor for bland or common.

A look ahead

Dog days are predicted with little on the official agenda as summer winds its way toward the fall. Too soon? Like it or not, this will be the last full week of summer vacation for school kids.

100 years ago

Medicine Hat would not rest in protecting its gas fields from the “tentacles of Calgary’s desire to obtain the fuel,” the News reported in early August 1922.

Following an Alberta cabinet decision to pause hearings on gas exportation systems, federal Interior Minister Charles Stewart (the former Liberal Alberta Premier) stated he would recommend that gas rights surrounding Medicine Hat be transferred by Ottawa to the city.

That earned an uproarious round of applause at a business luncheon at the Cecil Hotel.

Henry Wise Wood, the former leader of the United Farmers of Alberta who quit to oppose taking part in the 1920 provincial election, was rumoured to be the candidate of the UFA Alberta government to become chairman of the Canadian Wheat Board.

The city’s solicitor was directed to draw up a contract to engage F.S. Ratliff for the purpose of exploring for oil in the city’s leases.

Plans were announced to salvage the wreck of the Lusitania.

Medicine Hat’s Progressive Party MP Robert Gardner underwent throat surgery, forcing him to cancel local public meetings through the harvest.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com