City land sale plan strikes nerve at Connaught open house

By Collin Gallant on September 7, 2018.

cgallant@medicinehatnews.com @CollinGallant

The city’s land department is embarking on a plan to sell excess land, it was announced Wednesday just as residents in Connaught were hearing a proposal to convert greenspace near the upscale community into a lot for multi-family housing.

Connaught residents packed an open house on site at 532 Primrose Dr., as administrators discussed a potential plan to rezone the greenspace as multi-family residential then market it to condo developers.

Bare since the community’s creation, it was rejected by council as a potential condo site in the late 1990s, and more recently was selected as a potential seniors’ centre site, before council elected to save money refurbishing the current location.

Robin Cowan, a Connaught resident, said he disagrees with the plan and, based on the open house, feels the community is squarely opposed.

“People were really quite irate,” said Cowan. “(New condos) will take away from the community … People bought into this community because open space is part of the beauty of Connaught.”

Land planners say the lot, near the College Drive intersection with 13th Avenue, could be marketed as a potential site for townhouses and condominiums. It’s on an arterial road, transit route and not far from other multi-family housing on Upland Drive, near the college or on 13th Avenue. Apartments would be a discretionary use, if a land zoning change is approved at council.

The city’s land department is also preparing to market four other properties considered surplus to the city’s needs. They include three house lots once bought for Allowance Avenue expansion, bareland in Crescent Heights once set aside for a firehall, and a makeshift campground adjacent to the Moose ball diamonds.

Mayor Ted Clugston said he’s been hearing concerns from residents in the community, but council has made it a priority to sell land that it considered surplus to municipal needs.

“It’s a beautiful, established community that’s facing a land-use change,” he said early this week. “It could be a lightning rod.

“It’s the mandate from council to denisfy, and secondly, if it’s valuable land and we can sell it, let’s move it, rather than sit on it.”

A new set of strategic priorities from council, established following last fall’s election, directed administers to survey the city’s holdings for excess land and work with private developers to increase density in existing neighbourhoods. Such development, along existing roads and utility lines, boosts the tax base while not adding much to servicing costs.

The topic of the city’s land holding is discussed often at council, with councillors often questioning why the municipality is holding land that it could otherwise turn into cash to alleviate a budget shortfall.

Typically that’s pointed at larger tracts, but administrators suggest the city also has bits and babs of land throughout the city that are no longer needed.

“Some have been on the market before and I think they’re less contentious,” said Clugston.

Four such addresses were laid out at a committee meeting on Wednesday:

— 12 Gehring Rd., a four-acre parcel beside the Moose ball diamonds that was the subject last year of a conditional offer last year that fell through;

— 954 Second St. SE, a large lot between Luthor Manor subsidized housing and Lions Park;

— Three mixed-use lots on the 800 Block of 12th Ave. SE, which border a curve of Allowance Avenue;

— 104 20th St. NW, 1.3 acres south of Viterra Park near Division Avenue, originally slated for use by the fire department.

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