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New Riverside stormwater pond will meet future needs, council told

No residents presented at the public hearing, but some spoke out about changes through letters and emails to council.
1512 riverside asp file CC
Signs signal the entrance to the Riverside neighbourhood in St. Albert. CHRIS COLBOURNE/St. Albert Gazette

St. Albert city council approved development plan adjustments for the Riverside neighbourhood after hearing arguments the changes will not negatively impact the environment.

During the Dec. 6 meeting, council participated in a public hearing for the Riverside Area Structure Plan (ASP) changes. The changes include nine new residential lots, a reduction in the area of a stormwater pond, an addition of a road and lane section, and a slight increase to the size of a neighbourhood park in the northwest of the ASP. 

Proposed changes to the stormwater pond — located north of McKenney Avenue and west of Redspur Drive — garnered the most concern from residents who wrote council detailing their opposition.

Mayor Cathy Heron referenced the letters two residents wrote which expressed concerns about whether the new storm pond would hold enough water to deal with the impacts of climate change. 

According to Heron, council also received two email messages over the weekend in addition to the letters included in their agenda package. These emails also expressed opposition for the development.

“Municipalities across Alberta are actually talking about sizing storm infrastructure larger than we have in the past because of increased weather,” Heron said, asking city administration to give her confidence the stormwater pond’s design would account for the impacts of climate change. 

Regan Lefebvre, St. Albert’s senior manager of utilities, said the stormwater pond plans meet the city’s standards. 

“We designed to a one-in-100-year storm event which historically is a 1978 event that occurred at the Edmonton Municipal airport … which is actually quite comparable to what they’ve seen in British Columbia this summer,” Lefebvre said. 

Lefebvre said the city recently adopted a new standard for stormwater ponds based off of studies done by EPCOR and the University of Alberta, noting the new standards are slightly larger than the one-in-100-year storm event (the former being 136 millimetres in a 20-hour period, and the latter being 139 millimetres over a 24-hour period). 

Though the stormwater pond up for discussion is designed to meet the previous one-in-100-year storm event standard, Lefebvre noted that design included an eight-per-cent buffer. 

“We’re confident this stormwater pond will meet both that old standard and the new standard with some additional conservatism,” Lefebvre said. 

Shane Leppky, development manager at Genstar — the developer looking to make the changes — also gave a presentation during the council meeting. Leppky said in addition to being approved by the city, the storm pond’s design also meets the requirements of Alberta Environment. 

Moving the amendment forward, Coun. Wes Brodhead said he was confident in administration's and Genstar’s answers. 

“To my satisfaction at least, I believe that administration and our engineering team are on top of the question around the size of the stormwater management facility and whether or not it would stand the storms of the future,” Brodhead said. 

The amendment to the ASP passed unanimously. 

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