If you have been chomping at the bit – and a lot of Canmore residents have been – to get a better idea of what wildlife mitigations are being proposed in the undeveloped portions of Three Sisters Mountain Village, then an upcoming online information session is exactly what you are want.
Three Sisters Mountain Village is in the process of developing an area structure plan for Smith Creek – which was previously known as sites seven, eight and nine.
Smith Creek represents the undeveloped lands west of Stewart Creek phase two and three all the way to Thunderstone Quarry and Dead Man’s Flats.
One of the most critical factors for the development includes the designation of a wildlife corridor by the provincial government and proposed wildlife mitigation for the developed area.
QuantumPlace planner Jessica Karpat said regardless of which group the developer has spoken to during its community consultation process so far, it is clear that wildlife mitigations are top of mind for Canmore residents.
“What is great about community conversations is these plans are not perfect, so they help us identify where it isn’t working and we will try to balance the objective of Three Sisters Mountain Village, the community and wildlife,” she said.
Town of Canmore development planner Tracy Woitenko said wildlife mitigations being considered and the functionality of the still to be designated corridor are also considerations for an expected application by TSMV to amend its resort centre area structure plan.
“People are interested in these issues, have questions and want to be informed,” she said. “We are looking at mitigating comprehensively and there is a suite of mitigations being considered.
“There is no silver bullet – everything needs to work together to have a positive outcome.”
The format of the online webinar and question and answer session – Sept. 14 at 7 p.m. – is meant to replicate small community conversations the developer and the municipality have been having with different groups.
“What we are trying to do is replicate the success of the small community conversations we have had,” Karpat said. “In fact, the entire community could be part of this process.”
The online session will include a presentation from Golder senior biologist Kyle Knopff on all the proposed wildlife mitigations being considered. After sharing the concept and plans in their current draft form, Knopff and representatives from QuantumPlace will participate in a question and answer session.
Karpat said anyone can log into the online conversation from the community, or outside the community, and the format allows an open dialogue on the issue of wildlife mitigation.
She said the whole project team will be able to field questions from the public in real time. She added any follow up questions not answered as part of the live webinar will be addressed and posted on the Smith Creek website, as well as the archived video of the session.
“I am sure there are going to be a lot of questions,” Karpat said.
The proposed mitigation plan includes a wildlife exclusionary fence around Smith Creek’s developed area, which has already caused a stir in the community.
Woitenko said while the conversation may revolve around the controversial idea of fencing, all mitigations being proposed will be detailed and discussed.
For Karpat, the conversation about wildlife includes human use and how residents of the community use the landscape, access it for recreation and how that relates to wildlife corridor functionality.
“What we are tying to do is develop ways people can access provincially approved trails to get through the wildlife corridor into predictable places,” she said.
A wildlife exclusion fence, for example, said Woitenko, would prevent wildlife from travelling through developed areas, but it would also prevent people from wandering through designated wildlife corridors.
Keeping wildlife out of residential and commercial areas is about reducing the potential for negative wildlife interactions, Karpat added.
She said TSMV has been consistently tracking the functionality of corridors throughout its development area and found the species using the area most are people with off-leash dogs.
“We are trying to recognize that people come to Canmore to recreate, but we need the right balance between wildlife, development and negative human wildlife interactions,” she said. “Three Sisters Mountain Village and the Town have a joint interest in reducing negative wildlife interactions in the corridor.”
Go to www.smithcreekcanmore.ca to register for the online community conversation, or find more information on the Smith Creek process so far.
