A city committee has given its initial approval to sell two parcels of city-owned land around a southwest Calgary shopping complex following hours of public feedback largely against the move.
The land sale, which still needs approval by city council as a whole, was endorsed eight to three at the city’s Infrastructure and Planning Committee meeting Wednesday; Couns. Andre Chabot, Sean Chu and Dan McLean voted against.
City administration is recommending the sale of the 5.5 acres of “surplus” city-owned land around the Glenmore Landing shopping complex to RioCan Management Inc., which owns the complex.
RioCan is planning a major redevelopment of the area that would include six residential towers with commercial and mixed-use space that would add between 2,000 and 3,000 new residents to the area.
“The real question before us today is should this land be housing? Yes or no?” said Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner, who represents the area.
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However, the proposal is facing swift opposition from people who live near the complex, including an online campaign entitled ‘Stop the Towers.’
According to city administration, only six of the 2,698 responses received from the public were in support of the land sale.
Around 40 people came to Wednesday’s committee meeting to share their thoughts with city councillors, with the majority speaking out in opposition.
“They’re putting, essentially, a mini city immediately adjacent to the Glenmore Reservoir parklands,” said Lesley Farrar with Communities for Glenmore Landing Preservation. “It’s creating extreme overuse and congestion right there on reservoir parklands, I think that’s very concerning.”
Concerns shared by the speakers at the meeting varied from environmental impacts to the surrounding parkland, the sale of city-owned green space to a private developer, as well as potential traffic and infrastructure issues.
“You’ve got little old people crossing 90th Avenue with their walkers and their wheelchairs,” long-time Pump Hill resident, Leslie Levant told Global News. “We don’t have enough schools. They haven’t done any hydrology or geology reports. The shopping centre is already packed with cars.”
The city acquired the land around the shopping complex in 1983, originally intended for a future interchange at the intersection of 14th Street and 90th Avenue Southwest, which administration said “is no longer required.”
A city report said the land has functioned as a “landscaped barrier” between the shopping centre and the roadway, which has been maintained by the owners of the complex.
Another presenter told the committee that the city-owned land should remain as “parkland” and that selling it would set a “dangerous precedent.”
Only a handful of speakers spoke in favour of the land sale, including Holly Hoye, a 20-year Bayview resident who said she has never seen the city-owned parcels used as parkland.
“Area residents opposing the sale of this underutilized land are doing so because they fear the change that increased density may have,” Hoye told the committee. “The parkland argument is a smokescreen for hyper-local opposition.”
Others, like Chinook Park resident Dominic Mesenchuk, also supported the proposal due to its proximity to a bus-rapid transit line.
“It ticks all the boxes for transit-oriented development. It has great transit connectivity, because transit hubs aren’t only CTrains, right? The BRT is right there. It’s used quite heavily,” he said.
When asked about the overwhelming opposition following the vote, Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp, who chairs the committee, said the decision is about the land sale and any future development on the site will require more deliberation and debate.
“We have to absolutely take into consideration everything we heard from the community, but we also have to think about is if this land right now is being used to the best of its ability,” Sharp said.
Penner said the approval is the first step in the process for city council to get more details on what RioCan is proposing for the site in the future.
“We should really investigate what a land-use change could look like, and what it could mean for the community, and what it could mean for the city,” Penner said. “That is really what I want to press on and press forward to have that more robust conversation.”
Both councillors reiterated that there will be more opportunities for the community to have their say when RioCan brings forward its applications to rezone the land as well as future development permits.
However, that will only happen if city council as a whole agrees to sell off the land at a meeting in the coming weeks.
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