Last Saturday’s editorial “Time to Act” states that a small army of so-called experts were sent by the city to explain options to deal with the delay in sanitary sewer service. Actually, the time to act has long since past and this council should conduct an investigation into why this critical project has sat on the planning shelves for so many years. Critical because so many acres of potential non-residential development which would have helped balance our tax base has sat idle even though the three major developers; the land owners of South Riel, had planned to be into the ground this fall. Completion of construction is now delayed until at least late 2018. And these developers, who rightly claim that they had done their due diligence were obviously misled as to sanitary servicing for which had they paid for up front.
The City of St. Albert adopted the South Riel Area Structure Plan in 2007 and began marketing the land as future Commercial and Industrial Service land but since amended to include a small portion along the railway line as mixed residential. In 2010 the City also adopted the Downtown Redevelopment Plan (DARP) and accepted a plan by Grandin Park Properties (AVACON) to construct four multi-storied apartments along Sir Winston Churchill Avenue and another on Grandin Road along with development within the park properties now under construction.
All of these development proposals should have triggered the realization that these projects would have to be serviced with utilities, the most important of which would be sanitary sewer, yet as late as last year administration was still floating reports that staff “may consider potential interim solutions” for the disposal of waste water.
The South Riel land was purchased in 2012 by BcIMC an investment management company and they soon had deals put together with GWL, Averton and Cape Construction for developing the entire parcel scheduled for development in early 2016. Our business development department along with Engineering and Planning were fully aware of this.
Just remember that in March of 2012, mayor Nolan Crouse signed an employment contract with city manager Patrick Draper and one would think that Mr. Draper would have been briefed on the critical need to proceed with sanitary sewer planning to accommodate both the Grandin Park Property development as well as the South Riel Development. I know that we have lost three planners and five engineers this year but this year was too late in any event. Someone in a key city position seriously dropped the ball in the 2012/2013 time period.
St. Albert is going to grow again despite the threat of a serious recession. Let us hope that we have some smarter people around to plan the next development.
Coun. Bob Russell, St. Albert
