The Town of Innisfail presented four different options for a new residential development in the Napoleon Lake area at an open house last week.
The new development area (Lot 93 and a portion of Lot A) is bordered by 60th Avenue on the west and 50th Street on the north. The Church of Latter Day Saints and an adjacent grassed area lie just south of the land. Madison Park sits to the east. A drainage ditch runs through the south portion of the site.
The land was originally purchased to accommodate residential growth. Part of the land was originally planned for a school site when Red Deer Catholic Regional Schools started serving Innisfail, but the Hazelwood Estates Outline Plan adopted in 2007 identified a future school site in the area northwest of Dodd's Lake.
Following an initial open house at the end of January, the town presented four options to the public at the Library Learning Centre on March 21 that feature different street patterns, residential areas and open spaces. The goal is to gather feedback and to choose one of the options by April 15.
“Each of the four options, what we're calling layout options, has a bit of extra tweaking that can be done depending on the size of the lots we apply. So there's a question of what kind of layout people do suggest we put on the area and then the question of what size of the lots do we propose to go with,” said town director of planning and development Craig Teal.
The four options include a combination of R-1A and R-1B single-family residential properties. Properties labeled R-1A cover 7,815 square feet on an interior lot and 8,288 square feet on a corner lot. Properties designated R-1B cover 6,028 square feet on the interior, while corner lots cover 6,458 square feet. The larger properties (R-1A) are 66 feet wide and the smaller properties are 52 feet wide.
“Some of the feedback we were getting from local builders and realtors was that it would be nice if we created some options for 50-foot-plus wide lots,” Teal said.
Option A includes four of the larger properties facing 60th Avenue, toward Napoleon Lake, and 32 of the smaller properties facing internal roads with one access off of 60th Avenue. Option A also maintains about an acre of treed area along 50th Street.
Option B includes 35 lots in total, including seven of the larger lots facing 60th Avenue and 28 of the smaller properties facing internal roads with accesses off of 50th Street. Option B maintains over half an acre of treed area along 50th Street.
Option C also includes seven larger properties facing 60th Avenue but includes 32 of the smaller lots on internal roads and sacrifices the treed area along 50th Street.
Option D includes 42 properties, four of the larger properties facing 60th Street and 38 of the smaller properties facing internal roads accessed off of 60th Street. This option also sacrifices the treed area in the north.
Staurt Little has lived in Innisfail since 1975. The back of his house faces the site the town looks to develop. He dropped by last week's open house just to see what he would have a view of.
“I think it's very important that that drainage corridor is not put in as a pipe, but is left with as much natural landscaping around it as possible so that you can get the good plant life and the frogs and the number of birds that nest along there right now,” Little said.
Little said he would also like to see the treed area along 50th Street maintained.
Coun. Brian Spiller said he would rather see internal roads handling the new development's traffic, rather than multiple entrances off of 50th Street or 60th Avenue. But he stressed the open house was about gathering feedback from the public.
“I think we have a couple good options here that I'm interested in but I'm more interested in what the public and the developers are interested in and trying to appease them rather than trying to appease myself.”
The earliest construction could begin on the subdivision is in late fall.
