Kingswood residents will get their first look next week at a proposed change that would finally allow construction of a park in the area.
An open house is scheduled with city-hired consultant David Klippenstein on Tuesday evening at Red Willow Community Church. The doors will open at 6:30 and Klippenstein will give a presentation at 7 p.m.
At issue is the ongoing standoff between the city and area developer Canterra over the locations of a park and school site in Kingswood. Though construction in Kingswood started in 1986, the developer has refused to build a park identified in the original area structure plan (ASP) because of concerns over a connector road and the prospect of a high school being built in the area.
The city hired Klippenstein to draft proposed changes to the ASP, which will move the school site away from the park location, closer to Campbell Road. The proposed park site will not move.
“The idea is to maintain the central park site and to separate the school site to the east perimeter abutting Campbell Road,” Klippenstein said.
The reason for the change, Klippenstein said, is the fear that a centrally located school – which the Greater North Central Francophone Education Region No. 2 is interested in building – would likely be regional and create excess traffic in the area.
“The accessibility to Campbell Road instead is good,” Klippenstein said.
Other proposed changes include removing a proposed collector road link between Kingswood Boulevard and Sir Winston Churchill Avenue as well as a second link from Pineview Drive to Poirier Avenue.
“The traffic impact assessments supports those roads not being developed or being built,” said Klippenstein.
After the open house Klippenstein will meet with the developer to make sure all relevant points have been dealt with, then submit an application to amend the ASP in July. The city – not the developer – will bring the changes forward. With subsequent public hearings, applications for rezoning and subdivision, the changes likely won’t be official until the winter.
Even then there is no guarantee the developer will immediately build the park, said Coun. Cathy Heron, who has been driving the process forward. That’s why she pursued enhancements to the existing “tot lot” in Kingswood at Monday’s standing committee on finance (SCOF) as part of the 10-year capital plan.
“Even though the ASP will likely get approved this fall, there are no timelines for development,” Heron said. “Canterra still owns the land so who knows when they are planning to build.”
The city has explored other ideas in the past, including expropriating the land from Canterra. But administration warned that would set a dangerous precedent and could cost the city as much as $1 million.
Considering other neighbourhoods like Oakmont have multiple parks, Heron said it doesn’t make sense that Kingswood has only one tot lot to offer a relatively large neighbourhood.
“The area is more than 20 years old and they still don’t have a park,” Heron said. “It just seems so illogical that this has not happened and we should just get this done.”
