Questionable TSMV observations
Editor:
“TSMV out of receivership” includes the following: Richardson said it is important to remember that the site was originally 5,000 acres, and 2,000 acres were given up for environmental protection … almost half of that asset has already been given away for wildlife protection, which is very uncommon, you won’t find many development situations in North America where that amount has been given away.
From my reading of the two land exchange agreements entered into by the province and the earlier version of Three Sisters development, in 1990, Nov. 8, and 1994, March 11 (I offered to mediate, but was turned down), as well as a meeting with lawyers and representatives from the ministry responsible, as a result of an application through provisions of the deeply flawed Freedom of Information Commission, Richardson’s observations are questionable.
All the egregious giveaways went from public ownership to the developer, including valuable acreages on Eagle Terrace – “Cougar Creek Exchange Property,” 54 acres, a parcel along Bow Valley Trail, various acreages listed as “Forest Properties 2,5,8,10,13, building lots in South Canmore in partial lieu of a second option on Quarry Lake lands which the government ridiculously over-valued (ask the man that held the first option) much of which was immediately turned into cash which exceeded the original purchase price, an option on 40 acres of ‘Special Places’ land by the Alpine Club property and the point on which he established his gated community, set the value of a lot at $1million in a transfer to himself (at a time when lot values were no where near that high) and built his castle. That property was swapped for an equal sized chunk of valueless mountaintop in 1990. Bottom line, the original Three Sisters, the bankruptcy-lite, 63 cents on the dollar boys, got their 3,000 acres for nothing. That’s it, not Richardson’s fairy tale. Most may have forgotten, but I have two litigation bags full to remind me. Now I remind you.
Further, the spectre of an amendment to the Municipal Government Act, generally known as The Canmore Clause, is a reminder of the heavy political hand that shaped these travesties and seemed to negate two years of deliberation by the local Growth Management Committee that included our current MLA. The timing of the amendment, and the name by which it came to be known and a subsequent ruling by the Alberta Municipal Board, made that clear; in spite of the NRCB’s narrow mandate: the conservation of natural resources. I note parenthetically that the section that precedes the Canmore Clause refers to “the overall greater public interest.” Amen to that.
David Owen,
Canmore
