City council has approved the sale of a parcel of land adjacent to the intersection of Altawana drive and Parkview Drive after receiving an unsolicited offer on the roadside greenspace.--NEWS PHOTO EMMA BENNETT
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
The city’s land department has put up a ‘sold’ sign on another piece of land considered excess to municipal needs, but without having put up one reading ‘for sale.’
Council approved selling greenspace north of the Maple Avenue Bridge this week to a numbered company that approached the city with plans to build a commercial building near the high-volume intersection.
Jane Zwicker, of the land and business support office, said the transaction fits with a council directive to spur private activity development by marketing city land that is not needed for a civic purpose.
In this particular case however, the lot wasn’t in a batch of a half-dozen properties advertised in the fall.
“Our policy is that anyone can approach the city at any time on any piece of land to see if we’d be willing to sell it,” said Zwicker. “They came forward with a development in mind and asked.”
The particular parcel is a roadside greenspace located at the legal address of 511 Fourth Ave. NE – north of the recently completed No. 1 firehall and across an access road from the Shamrock Bottle Depot.
The conditional sale would be worth $371,400, with the buyer putting down a 10 per cent deposit ahead of a June closing date.
It has 18 months from that date to construct a building before an option kicks in allowing the city to buy back the land at 90 per cent of the price – a standard condition in city real estate transaction.
The parcel was created in 1998 when the municipal works department realigned Altawana and Parkview drives, and had since been under the parks department portfolio but without a formal land-use zone.
That status was discovered when the planning department developed the Riverside Area Redevelopment plan last year, and regional commercial use was proposed. After the firm approached the city, the potential sale circulated the city’s technical co-ordinating committee for potential concerns. The “random” parcel was appraised by a third party, a price determined and then council approved the move.
It was rezoned last month as regional commercial, and the conditional sale was approved by council at this week’s meeting.
Zwicker wouldn’t divulge the buyer or potential development but said it’s in keeping with the commercial designation.
Last fall, city council directed the department to begin reviewing its portfolio to find parcels not considered needed for municipal purposes but which could be developed by the private sector.
In December, residents of the community of Connaught objected when the department successfully applied to rezone a greenspace near Primrose and College Drives to accommodate medium density residential development. The office has now engaged third-party appraisers before creating a sales package that could include development guidelines. That could go before council this spring she said.
A conditional sale has been approved for a multi-family lot near the gates of of Lions Park on Second Street.
This month, another lot, a sliver along Allowance Avenue, was marked as having a pending offer.
Other lots in the category include land set aside years ago for a potential firehall near Division Avenue N.
Zwicker said negotiations are ongoing for a larger parcel located between the Moose Ball Diamonds and the city’s visitor information centre near the College Avenue overpass.
