A public hearing was held on Feb. 8 to amend the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) for Clearwater Park.
The community design included a range of housing, commercial, recreational, institutional land use, public spaces, connectivity with regional pathways and roads, four stormwater management facilities, and two school sites.
IBI Group on behalf of a Centron Company applied to amend the MDP to address amendments required for the proposed Area Structure Plan (ASP).
“We’re making the Clearwater Park the same as everywhere else for consistency, it will look like everywhere else,” planner of community growth and infrastructure Elizabeth Armitage said.
Administration proposed changing the employment lands, resulting in an overall reduction of approximately 11 per cent of employment land from the entire city.
“It would impact the long-term financial projections for the city. I don’t know the dollar figure, while it decreases the employment, it increases the residential,” Armitage said. “There could be revisions in the future, but what you approve today is what we’re envisioning will happen.”
Amendments also included the possibility of a Homeowners Association, that would enable any new community in Chestermere to develop a private recreation facility.
“Centron is the first one proposing it, but it’s highly likely they won’t be the last,” Armitage said. “Private recreation facilities are a common format of recreation delivery to communities, they are just new to Chestermere, and they have a proven successful track record in other communities when they are opened correctly.”
A similar presentation was made to the previous council, who asked the developer to take the presentation back and show council how there could be more employment lands.
“This goes the complete opposite way. It’s saying bring in more residential and reduce employment,” Councillor Ritesh Narayan said. “This is quite absurd, I’ll respectfully say, and this isn’t listening to what the residents of Chestermere want.”
The developer reassured council they are not pushing in any particular direction for development but want to meet demand.
“At this point in time, the demand for the residential is higher than the employment lands and the industrial. We’re trying to maximize our commercial and provide as many services as we can to the City of Chestermere, but it’s pioneering in the marketplace for the industrial,” the developer said. “It’s all a matter of time and demand, how quickly we want to grow the tax base, and how long we want to hold onto the lands. That’s the balance.”
Developing the new community will have significant impacts on the city’s existing and projected future municipal services, including water, stormwater, sanitary, and transportation networks, city administrations report said.
“We hope we’re able to do it as quickly as possible, the timelines for shovel in the ground will be the responsibility of the developers. We’re working to make sure everything goes as quickly as we can,” Armitage said. “The goal for the development team was to have the shovel in the ground last year, the quicker we can do this, the better.”
