City council opened the door to development on the long-idle Badger lands Monday by agreeing to have city administration develop a joint area structure plan with the owner of the adjacent land.
However, many questions remain about what will be built on the site and when.
The city-owned Badger site is 32 hectares (80 acres) located on the north side of Villeneuve Road. The land is adjacent to a 32-hectare plot owned by a group of investors that operate under the banner Badger Holdings Ltd.
The Badger group approached council in late September seeking assurances that it could begin forming an area structure plan with the city. On Monday, council agreed to have administration work with the Badger group on a joint ASP submission.
"I think it's great," said Badger Holdings president Ron Dutchak. "It makes sense to do the whole quarter section at the same time."
Dutchak has owned the land since 1978. His priority for the Badger area is to assemble some form of residential mix that's affordable for people to buy.
"In the last six years, there's been a real dearth of affordable housing of any size in St. Albert," he said.
His group will hire a planner to develop the plan and gather ideas from builders about the type of housing mix that would be attractive and affordable.
"Right now there's no point in building a community that's ghettoized," he said.
Dutchak is hoping the planning process takes eight months to a year.
City priorities
The city originally bought the land to build a recreation centre. That project eventually became Servus Credit Union Place and was built in Campbell park, prompting council to rethink its priorities for the Badger site.
In 2007 council identified four preferred uses: affordable housing, library, church and commercial. A fifth use, for parkland, was to be considered when the city prepares an area plan.
Mayor Nolan Crouse said he wasn't sure how the process would proceed but thinks the city still needs some form of affordable housing, as well as municipal land for something like a transit garage and non-residential development.
"I'm always interested when there's a motivated landowner. Motivated landowners are the key to the process, otherwise lands sit idle," Crouse said.
Coun. James Burrows is concerned that the city is entering an ASP process based on old priorities that could be outdated.
On the flip side, he recognized that Dutchak's group has already spent tens of thousands on planning and engineering and wants to get going.
"They want to get on with developing their land and I respect that," Burrows said. "My caution was more on the 80 acres that we own. I'm hoping it's not going to be carte blanche all affordable housing."
The city's administration is concerned about moving forward on an ASP when the city has yet to identify a preferred location for a desired light industrial park.
"When the new council gets in that's one of the things we'll have to talk to them about — what they want to utilize those lands for," said director of planning and development Curtis Cundy.
The city also doesn't have enough staff to complete an ASP in 2011, and hasn't defined what type of affordable housing it wants, Cundy said.
"There's a lot of questions that still need to be answered," he said.
