St. Albert’s air quality monitoring station is now homeless due to a ruling by the city’s subdivision appeal board, but the province says the station will get built eventually.
The city’s subdivision and development appeal board ruled in favour of appellant Charlene Berard last week in her case against the development permit for the proposed St. Albert air quality monitoring station at 145 Larose Drive.
The city applied earlier this year to build the three-by-six metre $250,000 station in Larose Park next to the Lacombe Park Reservoir. It would have been the first such station in the city, and would have given residents real-time data on the safety of their air.
Berard appealed the station’s development permit, arguing that the station would lower property values and harm recreational use of Larose Park. She also said it had been improperly classified as a public utility under the land use bylaw. During last month’s hearing on the matter, she tabled a petition signed by 136 residents who also opposed the station.
The board agreed with Berard, saying in its written ruling that the station would “unduly interfere with the amenities of the neighbourhood,” obscure the sightlines of homes across the street and reduce the amount of space usable in the park. (The board noted that the station’s footprint was “relatively small.”)
“No matter what colour you paint it, the development is still a metal industrial grade trailer,” the board said, and would not blend with the rest of the neighbourhood.
The board also found that the station did not qualify as a public utility building, as the city had argued, as “air quality monitoring” was not listed under the definition for public utility in the city’s land use bylaw. As such, it could not be considered a permitted or discretionary use in Larose Park.
The city would likely have to amend the land use bylaw if it wanted to put these stations in parks, the board said.
Berard said she was very pleased by the ruling. “I don’t think it was the right location for it to be placed at,” she said. “There’s got to be somewhere else where it will have less effect on the residents.”
Local air quality expert David Spink, who spoke in favour of the station at the June hearing, questioned the board’s conclusion that it would have a detrimental effect on Larose Park. “I run through that park all the time, and it will have no material effect on use of the park.”
Berard disagreed. “Right now from my front window I can see (children) playing in that exact spot.”
Spink also criticized the city for not doing more public consultation on this station. “This could have been a good news story.”
Public consultation could have lessened opposition to the station, Berard agreed. “A lot of my neighbours I spoke with were just downright mad that they didn’t even have an opportunity to ask questions before it was approved.”
Mayor Nolan Crouse expressed disappointment over the situation and vowed to take action.
“We need to find a place for an air quality monitoring station, period,” he said. Council had spent years lobbying the province to get one, and St. Albert was the biggest city in the province not to have one. “That’s absurd.”
Manager of community sustainability Leah Kongsrude said she was “shocked” by the board’s ruling, noting that many other communities classified air-monitoring stations as public utilities.
Unless the land use bylaw was changed, she continued, it would be illegal to build such stations anywhere in St. Albert. Such amendments usually take at least six months.
The province is committed to putting this station in St. Albert, said Bob Myrick, the air policy manager with Alberta Environment who helps decide where to put air-monitoring stations, and would not relocate it just because this permit had been denied. “We definitely need to have a station in that community.”
While local opposition often leads to delays of up to two years when placing stations, Myrick said this was the first time in 15 years that one had been held up by a bylaw definition.
Myrick said his department would work with St. Albert to find a new home for the station. “It may not be as ideal as that particular location, but it would be acceptable.”
Spink called on council to amend its land use bylaw to allow these stations to be placed where they best benefit the community at large. “Otherwise, it’ll be this NIMBY thing. Nobody will want one. We’ll have to put it in Timbuktu.”
