Olds town council has passed three bylaws that clear the way for redevelopment of the former high school athletic field, located just north of Highway 27 and south of 44th Street, despite the objections of at least one resident.
Public hearings were held for all three bylaws. Coun. Wade Bearchell voted against each bylaw.
The area in question covers about 3.37 hectares. The land used to serve as a track and field facility for Olds High School. But when the high school was moved to its present location adjacent to Olds College, that land was no longer needed for that purpose.
Under the plan, an access road to the area from Highway 27 would be created adjacent to Grouchy Daddy's, ending in a cul-de-sac. Commercial land would be in the south part of the land with residential in the north end.
When the area is fully built out, traffic signals would be installed there.
Land would be swapped to create room for that road. As a result, Grouchy Daddy's would end up with room for at least one large parking lot. Chief operating officer Scott Chant said the nearby A & W restaurant is not affected by the proposed plans.
Also, the changes allow for the creation of more commercial development, as the highway commercial designation would be extended north about 40 metres into that land.
The changes also allow for residential development, including medium density housing.
One of the bylaws removes the "reserve" status of the land, enabling the Chinook's Edge School Division to sell it.
The plan also calls for a patch in the northeast corner of the land to be public recreational facility space.
Emergency access would also be created along the east boundary, north to 44th Street on area owned by the town, although that access would have to be gained via privately-owned land.
Nearby landowners submitted a letter to the town. They expressed concern as to whether the plan fits the existing Uptowne Olds Area Redevelopment Plan.
They also said it reduced the amount of public green space (people have used it as such, even though it isn't officially public green space, municipal planner Kimberly Soutiere indicated).
They also expressed concern about the impact more traffic would have in the area, and whether there's sufficient water and sewer infrastructure for the development.
To minimize the impact of the development on the neighbourhood, the letter writers asked to prevent driveway access to the alley, a 10-metre landscape buffer and a fence.
Local resident Frank Richardson, one of the letter writers, came to council and objected publicly to the plan, saying it would result in the construction of "high-rise" apartment buildings "directly behind our house."
He said the proposed four-storey buildings would shade his yard all day and expressed concern that residents of those buildings would be able to look into his yard, thereby invading privacy.
Richardson said other than himself, homeowners have had no meetings with the developers.
He said a hotel complex may be developed as well which could drastically increase the density there.
"We basically will have our quality of life completely changed," Richardson said, indicating the value of their property will likely fall as well.
Richardson said there are "major hydro lines all along the alley" so he questioned how emergency vehicles could get in there to fight a fire.
"The plan is just utterly ridiculous," he said.
Noting he's a developer himself, Richardson said the plan could be revised so that lower rise condos are placed directly behind existing single-family housing and multi-family dwellings further back.
"Staff is in support of the multi-family housing along the back to transition from single-family dwelling (to) multi-family housing and then into commercial (land)," Soutiere said, adding the concepts fit with town plans for the community.
Josh Remai of developers Span West Ventures spoke in favour of the changes and responded to residents' concerns.
He said his company has no problem with the mitigation measures proposed by those who signed the letter.
"We're going to be next to them in this development and we want to be friendsÖwe're definitely not adversarial," Remai said, although he said instead of a buffer zone, maybe some big, tall trees could be planted.
"I totally appreciate the neighbours' concerns. We totally want to work with them on it," Remai said. However, he said at the moment, their concerns were a "non-issue" because specific plans for what will go in there have not yet been drawn up.
Bearchell wondered about how the installation of the access road will affect area businesses.
Bearchell said he's not opposed to development of the site but said moving the multi-family "high-rise" buildings to the south or west, near the proposed highway commercial land makes more sense than putting them close to existing single-family homes.
"There always was in the conceptual plan, residential development on the back and it always was intended to be of a higher density than a single-family dwelling," Soutiere said.
She said the plan doesn't specify the style of that higher-density residential development. Town staff would have to evaluate those plans when they're presented to them when the time comes to apply for development permits for the area.
