Councillor shows his vision for St. Albert industrial
Burrows sees long-term industrial growth
Sitting at a large table inside the Soup and Sandwich Shack on Chatelain Drive, Coun. James Burrows takes a pen and draws lines in the northwest corner of a St. Albert map, just above Villeneuve Road and along Carrot Creek.
“So let’s say the Avenir-Melcor development goes in here,” Burrows says, circling the location of a proposed mixed-use development that would run along Carrot Creek and south of Villeneuve Road.
He then draws a circle around the intersection of the future Ray Gibbon Drive extension and Villeneuve Road, pointing out how that will turn into a major interchange for the Anthony Henday leading into St. Albert.
He then points the pen to a chunk of land north of that intersection, where two streams from Carrot Creek lead off to the section of undeveloped land.
“The city of St. Albert already owns this,” he says, now pointing to a sliver of land next to the line he’s just drawn. “So what I’m saying is that the future industrial park of St. Albert should be all of this –” and points to the land in the northwest-most corner of the map.
The councillor’s vision of a new industrial park for St. Albert came after council voted down administration’s recommendation for an industrial park along Carrot Creek as part of the city’s larger plan for the northwest annexed lands. The park was vetoed after several groups came forward saying the location of the park would pose a potential threat to the Sturgeon River watershed.
For Burrows, his proposed spot would allow for industry to have a major roadway to ship goods, connect the land to a smaller proposed industrial park for the Avenir project just below the area and allow the city and Sturgeon County to even work together to build the county’s Pro-North Business Park towards the councillor’s proposed area.
“These two aren’t far away from each other,” says Burrows. “The whole west side of St. Albert and Sturgeon County could become one large industrial park to the betterment of both communities.”
When the existence of two streams that led into Carrot Creek inside Burrows’ proposed industrial area are brought up, he explains that Alberta Environment would never allow an industrial park to exist there without some sort of setback and environmental controls in place beforehand.
Malcolm Parker, chair of the St. Albert economic development advisory committee (SAEDAC), said he’s discussed some ideas for the new industrial park with Burrows and other committee members. However, he feels that any choice about the industrial park needs to be made sooner rather than later if the city is going to relieve the tax burden on residents.
“I don’t know how feasible the idea is,” he said about the plan in a separate interview. “There’s a lot of uncertainty about where this industrial land is going to go.”
Burrows says he’s discussed his idea with a few other people, but knows there would need to be more work done on the idea as well as waiting for administration to prepare the report on the potential location of a new light industrial area for spring 2011. However, he hopes that others would be willing to consider the idea.
“This is my vision, nobody else’s,” he says. “It’s still going to be clean industry, not smokestacks.”
