Editor:
Re: QuantumPlace Peaks of Grassi UR Re-Zoning Application
The QuantumPlace Development Ltd website states that an application for re-zoning about four acres of urban reserve (UR) in Peaks of Grassi to develop about 19 new residential lots will be filed with the Town of Canmore in September.
This developer, representing three private investors, held an open house on Sept. 6 to inform our community of their general intentions. Two previous letters published here on Sept. 11 and 18 have outlined some of our concerns and have documented the widespread opposition by our community to this fundamentally misguided proposal for numerous compelling reasons.
This letter represents our own specific concerns, as residents who purchased our retirement home here 12 years ago.
The impact of building on this forested land that provides a critically-located natural refuge for wildlife that inevitably use the TransAlta utility corridor behind Quarry Lake should be more than adequate reason to judge this development proposal as simply unacceptable. This development proposal is wholly inconsistent with the Town of Canmore commitment to ensure that our community can live at some level of harmony with the wildlife that we value as a distinguishing characteristic of our mountain community.
Moreover, we believe that respecting the social fabric of our community requires that residents can reasonably expect our Town to honour its own policies and exercise its duty to provide its residents with some level of certainty about community planning and development. Extraordinary changes must only be made with extraordinary justification.
When we purchased our home in Quarry Pines in 2002, we did our homework. We visited the Town administration, obtained a copy of the Canmore Land Use Bylaw binder and a copy of the subdivision map. We specifically asked the Town planners about the UR designation of the forested portions on our street.
Town officials told us that UR zoning did not preclude a development proposal from ever being brought forward, but they also told us that it would be very difficult to secure approval for re-zoning of this UR parcel because the Peaks of Grassi district was already at its maximum approved density. Any future council that approved re-zoning would have to be convinced, with the burden of proof being squarely on the developer, that adding even more residential development to the second most densely developed district in all of Canmore was truly in the best interests of the community.
The developer has not been accurate about the reason why these UR parcels were not developed at the time that the rest of our community was being built, stating on its web site: “During the time when the Peaks community was being developed, the priorities of the developer shifted to other areas.”
The truth is that in 1998 the Town had placed a limit on development in this community which Three Sisters Resorts Inc. ultimately agreed to, making it necessary to leave the parcels in question undeveloped under UR zoning.
Now bankruptcy successor TSMV has sold these UR parcels to three investors who have retained QuantumPlace Developments to secure the Town’s re-zoning approval in 2014 for additional density that was denied in 1998. QuantumPlace has represented that UR zoning has essentially been approved for development, needing to be merely re-zoned. Yet, when Quarry Pines was being built around 2000, the lead investor unequivocally assured his clients that the UR lands would never be developed. Why would any of us believe anything these proponents tell us now?
In truth, there is no obligation on the Town to ever allow residential development on UR land. We have been unable to find any precedent for Canmore having re-zoned any UR land for residential development, let alone land so obviously critical as a wildlife refuge near heavily used Quarry Lake Park. A quick look at Town of Canmore zoning maps shows a much larger forested UR zone between Quarry Lake and Three Sisters Parkway, which we understand is still owned by TSMV. Will this Quarry Lake UR be next up for a residential development re-zoning proposal?
The current proposed Peaks of Grassi UR development will add no significant value to our community compared with the severe harm that it will produce. The QuantumPlace open house described an intention to add five single-family units and 14 duplex units. These 19 additional units would increase the density of the Quarry Pines segment of Lawrence Grassi Ridge from the existing 50 units by an extraordinary 38 per cent and will also decrease the frontage green space on our street by about 70 per cent.
Peaks of Grassi already has the second highest density of Canmore’s 29 residential districts (based on 2014 census of permanent population) and our density is 40 per cent higher than the average density of Calgary residential communities.
We also have to wonder why TSMV sold these four acres of UR for only $325,000 in April 2014 given that the new owners are planning 19 residential unit lots that can easily command more than $250,000 each. Why does Canmore need 19 more expensive houses in return for causing destruction of the green space near Quarry Lake that is regularly used by wildlife as a refuge?
The extraordinary benefit to the three investors behind this development proposal is clear to anyone with grade school arithmetic. But where is the benefit to the Town of Canmore, or our fully built Peaks of Grassi community? Again, the burden of proof belongs with the developer. We have to wonder what kind of economic or sustainability screening analysis can be conjured to show that this development is a net benefit to Canmore, given the severe, unequivocal losses to wildlife refuge and community character that re-zoning will allow.
No one in Canmore should misjudge what is ultimately at stake in this case. If this fundamentally bad proposal is approved, then the chain saws will soon move in to fell those mature trees presently gracing our already fully developed neighbourhood. The resulting, overwhelming sense of betrayal and frustration in our community will be no more reversible than the deplorable loss of these critical patches of wildlife refuge.
This damage to our community will be permanent. What possible case for adding 19 more expensive houses to the Canmore housing inventory could justify allowing such profound, irreparable damage?
All Canmore residents need to be informed about what this re-zoning application means about how Canmore development is reconciled with the critical need for wildlife refuge from growing human activity and the reasonable expectations of residents in fully developed neighbourhoods for preserving the limited green space they were assured was secure because maximum approved density had been reached.
We encourage you to ask our council about how they will deal with these stark choices for Canmore because such issues could ultimately impact what you truly value wherever you live in the valley.
Elizabeth J. Hrudey and Steve E. Hrudey,
Canmore
