Twin Brooks residents pan housing plan
Say land needed for school, not affordable homes
Gordon Kent, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, December 11, 2006
EDMONTON - Some angry Twin Brooks residents have started a campaign to convince the city to call off plans to sell the vacant school site in their area for affordable starter homes.
They're holding a public meeting with ward councillors tonight to make the case that the plan, given tentative approval two weeks ago, will create traffic problems, overcrowd the existing school, take away much-needed soccer fields and won't be suitable for the upscale neighbourhood.
"We could actually use another school -- never mind row-housing, up to possibly 50 condos, and possibly 100 more kids," Twin Brooks Community League president Sandy Tarnowski said Sunday.
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Font: ****"Where are they going to go to school?" Under a deal reached last month by the city, local school districts and the province, 20 pieces of vacant land around Edmonton originally slated for schools will be used instead for condo and townhouse developments.
The proposal could create up to 1,000 new housing units for first-time home buyers, with construction expected to start in 2008 at three to five locations.
Neighbourhoods will get a say in the configuration of individual projects, traffic impacts and other factors to ensure the new structures are compatible with existing homes.
Tarnowski and other people in southwest Edmonton are unhappy they were not consulted on the project.
"There are a lot of upset people regarding the process," said Sandra Crawford, president of the South West Area Council, an umbrella organization for 17 community leagues.
"We were informed that our communities were going to change. We had no say." Coun. Bryan Anderson initially supported the zoning changes needed to implement the housing scheme, but said he will oppose them when the matter returns to council Tuesday for a final vote.
While he still likes the concept of using the land for housing, he wants to hold a hearing where people can indicate which locations they want included.
Mayor Stephen Mandel, councillors and other officials feared such discussions for each site could take years, creating problems if current cabinet ministers who favour the proposal are replaced, Anderson said.
"If the project has as much validity as we think it does, then conceivably it will stand on its own merits no matter who is the minister," he said.
"Would a six-month or a year delay make the project any less beneficial? I don't think so." However, Homesteader Community League president Angie Eleniak said her northeast district has volunteered to have land at Canon Ridge be among the first sections of the city to get one of the developments.
While initially wary, they have concluded the scheme is going ahead, and following a meeting attended by Mandel, city officials and community league executives on Nov. 30, are interested in taking part, she said.
Many other people at the meeting took a "not in my backyard" approach, Eleniak said.
"I'm a first-time homeowner ... . I'm sorry they looked at the dregs of society being the ones who would buy these homes," she said. "We're more than willing to be one of the project sites ... we want to prove the process can work."
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© The Edmonton Journal 2006
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I hope to all things sacred that this is not the location. This area is NOT ready for that type of development, and I should know, I work across on 108th street. Way too much industrial in this area, hell, they have an old tire storage yard about 1 block west, behind said abort!on
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