The news this week that PricewaterhouseCoopers is abandoning the process to establish an area structure plan for Three Sisters Mountain Village definitely creates more uncertainty around that land, which has languished over the past several years after going into receivership.
But we think it is actually a good thing for both wildlife in the area and the community as a whole.
While it is disappointing PwC didn’t want to pursue the ASP process with council, at the end of the day it is a receiver and it represents a bank, HSBC Canada, which held the loan for East West Partners when it bought the property back in 2007.
But the fact of the matter is that PwC and HSBC are not property developers and they are certainly not interested in the community of Canmore. They want one thing and one thing only — to maximize profitability. That means less undisturbed land for animals, including grizzly bears, to travel through in wildlife corridors.
It may be the Province’s authority to determine the size, shape and orientation of the final wildlife corridor on those lands, but the uses adjacent to those corridors are subject to municipal development approvals. And we have a council that recognizes and understands the value of protecting wildlife movement and developing our community in a responsible manner.
No wonder PwC walked away from the process, once it realized our development authority is not there to rubber stamp a plan that maximizes revenues and puts wildlife at risk. Canmore is not new to the development game or the dance of a thousand veils some developers bring to the table in order to get approvals passed.
This community has clear values in relation to those lands and what they should and should not be used for. The NRCB decision of 1992 may have given definitive development rights to the owners of that land, but it did not take away Canmore’s authority to approve where those densities are put and the timelines for how it is developed.
This is the future of Canmore, and it is critical to how as a community we will develop. It should not be rushed; it should never be taken for granted that TSMV represents 80 per cent of the developable land left in town.
So the saga continues, but with PwC going back to the strategy of trying to sell the land instead of pursuing development approvals in place first, Canmore could come out better off in the end. The first thing any developer or landowner needs to understand about that land is how important it is and that if you want to build in this community, you have to listen and be willing to work collaboratively with officials and the community.
There is no rush to develop TSMV. Canmore can sit back and wait for the day when there is an owner in place willing to take that process and responsbility on, which will be good news for the community. In the meantime, that land will continue to sit unused and that’s good news for wildlife.
