A legal challenge against a rezoning application for infill development in Peaks of Grassi has been dropped.
According to a letter from one of the plaintiffs in the legal application, Calgary lawyer Mark Gruman, the application to stop rezoning of four acres of land in the Canmore neighbourhood has been dropped.
“My clients are confident that town council will make a reasoned decision based upon the overwhelming evidence against the application for rezoning in the Peaks of Grassi,” Gruman wrote. “Accordingly, I have been instructed to discontinue the action against Lawrence Hill, et. al. which, if successful, would have prevented the rezoning application from proceeding.”
Friends of Peaks of Grassi Inc. filed the lawsuit at the end of September against Hill and his partners and associated businesses that own four acres of land in the Canmore neighbourhood.
Hill, Pierre Doyon and Dan Madlung are longtime residents of the neighbourhood and put forward an unsuccessful development application for the land earlier this year.
This fall, they submitted a new application for rezoning of urban reserve land proposing infill development, including five single family detached units, eight duplex units and 14 townhouse units – of which seven are proposed to be Perpetually Affordable Housing.
A public hearing was held at the end of November and council was informed by administration that the municipality’s legal counsel indicated the injunction had no bearing on council’s development approval process. The public hearing saw many residents speak against rezoning of the lots and council asked to honour a 1998 settlement agreement that limited density in that neighbourhood.
The lawsuit asked for an injunction into the rezoning, along with a declaration from the current owners that they hold the land in trust for the community and will sell the land to the plaintiffs for $200,000.
The plaintiffs, Friends of Peaks of Grassi Inc., are a separate group from the Peaks of Grassi Community Association.
While different, they do have key positions filled by the same people. A corporate registries search for Friends of Peaks of Grassi found its directors named as Tom Boone, Mark Gruman (also legal counsel for the group), and Ernie Mattern.
Mattern is also listed as vice-president of the Peaks of Grassi Community Association.
As it turns out, Hill and partners were not the only ones approached by Three Sisters Mountain Village to purchase the land.
In an affidavit filed with the court on the matter, QuantumPlace principal developer Chris Ollenberger stated TSMV directed him to market the parcel for sale “because it was small, not connected to the other lands owned by TSMV, and TSMV was incurring the ongoing costs of paying for insurance and property taxes.”
“The parcel was zoned urban reserve,” Ollenberger’s affidavit states. “As a result, before it could be developed it would have to be rezoned by the Town of Canmore. I believed that a locally based developer would have the easiest time obtaining the necessary rezoning and therefore be more likely to purchase the parcel. On that basis, I elected to offer the parcel for sale to Canmore-based developers before marketing to the wider development community.”
Ollenberger also contacted John Third, Kidner Homes, Bow View Homes, Bob Kocian and Steve Landi, but it was Hill that eventually purchased the property on an as is, where is, basis.
In all his correspondence with local builders, Ollenberger was clear that zoning would have to be applied for.
“Theoretically (and we emphasize theoretically), if you can get zoning we believe it could have maybe a dozen lots, but make no representations as such.”
