Green light for Avenir, sports city
Green light for Avenir, sports city
Wednesday, Jul 13, 2011 06:00 am | By Cory Hare | St. Albert Gazette
New developments focused on clean technology and elite sports training are one step closer to becoming reality after St. Albert city council approved both concepts during a marathon meeting Monday night.
Council approved the visions for Rampart Avenir and SAS Sports City, which had both been seeking amendments to the municipal development plan (MDP), allowing developers to work on more detailed area structure plans.
“We are obviously pleased and are grateful to council,” said Gerry de Klerk, CEO of Rampart Capital Corp. “We now look forward to working with council and administration to bring to St. Albert a world-class development with a diverse tax base.”
The developments will be located in St. Albert’s northwest corner, west of the future third stage of Ray Gibbon Drive and south of Villeneuve Road.
After council amended the application to require 20 per cent commercial, the land that Rampart Avenir seeks to develop is now designated as 80 per cent residential. The sports city land is roughly split between industrial, commercial and residential.
Proponent Pat Cassidy was pleased with the decision.
“With the type of people that live here, I think we’re on the cusp of something really exciting,” he said.
The Avenir development is to have a mix of housing, including entry level. Its developers have partnered with Cisco Systems to include technology that allows for the remote transfer of large amounts of data. This will make the homes attractive for people who want to set up knowledge-based businesses at home, its proponents say.
Avenir proponents hope the development will become a hub of clean technology in five sectors: local energy production, water recovery and reuse, local food production, advanced building materials and vehicle energy infrastructure.
It’s envisioned that technology-related businesses will locate in commercial or industrial space that will permeate the adjacent sports city.
The nucleus of the sports city will be a massive sport development centre that will include a 2,500-seat baseball stadium, a five-sheet ice arena, Canada’s largest indoor fieldhouse and an outdoor golf practice facility.
The facilities will be privately owned and operated, Cassidy said. They will be home to private academies where young elite athletes from all over Canada and beyond can live and train.
The key to making the project work is the portion of residential land that will be developed according to normal development practices.
“We’re going to take those profits and we’re investing them in our sports city. That’s part of our model,” Cassidy said.
Annexed land
When the city annexed land from Sturgeon County in 2007, the municipal development plan designated the land in question as a future study area, a term invented to park the land for later designation. Any development requires an MDP amendment, which involves a public hearing process.
To allow the approval, administration backed off on a previous stance to require that a landfill containing construction waste be cleaned up before the city accepts an MDP amendment. Administration now feels this clean-up must be done prior to completion of the next approval stage, said city manager Bill Holtby.
The MDP amendment requests also required approval from the Capital Region Board, which came via a letter dated July 8.
Mayor Nolan Crouse opposed the Avenir bid because he felt the land should be all non-residential. The rest of council were attracted to the vision.
“What speaks to me in this Avenir project is something different. It’s something different that fits with St. Albert,” said Coun. Wes Brodhead.
Coun. Malcolm Parker opposed the sports city bid after failing to convince council to designate its land as industrial. This is necessary, he said, to provide the city with more tax revenue from businesses and reduce the tax burden on residents.
“They’re talking about high taxes now. Wait five years and see what you’ll be hearing,” he said.
Coun. Cam MacKay had high praise for the sports city concept.
“If it does pan out it will be something fabulous for the city,” he said. “I don’t know if it will work or not but I certainly don’t believe that it’s the government’s responsibility to regulate that.”
St. Albert Chamber of Commerce chair Charlene Zoltenko urged council to keep the land in play for a desired industrial park.
“If you wish to see St. Albert grow and prosper, then why would you shoot yourself in the foot by placing more residential development in this location when finding a suitable area for light industrial development is so challenging?” she said.
After the vote was done Crouse acknowledged that Avenir’s vision is bold. He described the developer’s commitment to paying for servicing up front as “watershed.”
“Let’s get started,” he said.
