Council put the brakes on a plan to stop work on the long-planned bike skills park on Monday.
City staff recommended that the work on the park be discontinued.
Chris Jardine, general manager of the community and protective services department, said the plans have hit an “insurmountable” obstacle.
“It won’t work for us. There’s some environmental challenges,” Jardine said.
A large part of those environmental challenges revolve around the site, 43R Riel Drive, being on a floodplain.
There have been indications it would be difficult to get Alberta Environment Water Act approval to build the park as planned.
The site had been selected after residents firmly rejected the idea of locating the skills park in Liberton Park. After reviewing more than 40 sites, a second choice was narrowed down to the 43R Riel Drive location, which was not in a residential area, or Grosvenor Park, both of which residents rallied against.
“We’re at a loss as to how to move forward with this project, and as a result of that we’re recommending that we essentially shut this down at this point,” Jardine said.
Council proved unwilling to sign off on discontinuing the project entirely on Monday night, however, and some members tried to find different solutions to the problem.
“It might be a little premature to just kill it tonight,” said Coun. Cathy Heron. She gave notice of motion that would explore a second option listed in the report, which suggested changing the scope and design of the park to minimize disturbance to the floodplain, but would retain the Riel location.
Coun. Sheena Hughes also gave a notice of motion, which would discontinue work at the Riel site, transfer the remainder of the money left back to the major recreation facilities city fund and to continue looking for a different site.
Coun. Tim Osborne asked about working with the BMX club to make that track more accessible to public use.
“I think we’re all trying to find magical solutions here, so I’ll try mine,” Osborne said. Jardine noted staff have explored that option and due to liability risks the city would probably have to have the site supervised.
Mayor Nolan Crouse had a few suggestions of how the BMX track could be a possibility, but asked Hughes and Heron to put their motions on ice for a few weeks to get more in-depth backgrounders.
He said the project has suffered from “scope creep” over the years, with the original idea to build a dirt bike mogul track for youth who were having their own jumps shut down.
Alan Henry from the Big Lake Environment Support Society applauded the staff recommendation of discontinuing work on the bike park at the site during an appearance in front of council on Monday.
“We would like to go on record as supporting that decision,” Henry said.
Jason Wywal, the president of the St. Albert Bike Association, said on Tuesday morning he was happy the project got a reprieve.
“I think it’s great to see council having a desire to see something happen,” he said.
The club was disappointed to see the recommendation from staff to discontinue work, but Wywal said he understands the reasons.
But council’s hesitation to follow that advice means the bike association has a few more weeks to work with council and staff to try and find a solution, be it a different location or a project with a more limited scope.
“That’s better than nothing,” he said.
