A young St. Albert woman says she needs developments such as Amacon's Grandin Condo complex if she hopes to be able to stay in the city.
Annie Belley, a 21-year-old university student, says she supports the construction of apartment buildings on the former Grandin mall site, which would bring some much-needed medium-cost, and possibly lower-cost, housing to the city.
"It would be nice for me to live in St. Albert forever. Just because it's nice here," she says.
Belley is one of many residents living up the street from the construction site on Sir Winston Churchill Avenue where developer Amacon is now starting to work on its multi-million dollar housing project.
The company plans to develop an urban village with 17 buildings, including three high-rise towers, boutique shops, a grocery store and underground parking. Construction is expected to take 10 years.
On Monday, Amacon was given the green light on the first phase of construction. The developer had asked city council for an amendment to the land use bylaw that would allow it to build five storeys on two of its buildings, instead of the initial four storeys. The amendment was approved but remains controversial.
Several residents living close to the site, and some councillors, repeatedly opposed that change. They fear the development will change the city's "feel," and that another storey will, among other things, add pressure on infrastructure and create issues with over-population.
Now that construction on the five-storey buildings have been approved, the Gazette decided to speak to more residents in the Grandin neighbourhood to see what they have to say.
Neighbourhood response
You can't see or hear much of the construction site from where Belley lives off Grosvenor Boulevard. But that doesn't make it less of a topic of conversation amongst her neighbours.
Even Belley, who favours adding more living space in the downtown, worries how the growth in population will affect the roads. She hopes the city will put up more traffic lights to avoid collisions.
"We are worried about the traffic just because we have this intersection (connecting Grandin Road and Grosvenor Boulevard) that is already a little bit congested," she said. "So we worry about that without traffic lights."
Matt Heacock, who lives on Grosvenor Boulevard, agrees that Grandin Road and Grosvenor Boulevard are busy thoroughfares.
But he mostly worries about the people moving into the apartment buildings. Heacock once lived in the outskirts of Toronto. Then the city expanded and apartment buildings sprung up all around him. He hoped it would be quieter and safer in St. Albert.
"They build apartments and it gradually went downhill," he said. "It wasn't safe to let your kids out past a certain hour."
A few houses up the road, Brian Taylor says growth is inevitable in a city like St. Albert. But he does not think the city has the infrastructure to accommodate that many people either. It will have to improve the fire department and other services, he says.
"And I assume that will fall on the citizens and not on the developer," he says, adding that he also wishes the city and Amacon would put in more green spaces "so nature is balanced."
Many of the residents living further into the Grandin neighbourhood, and away from the construction site, appear less concerned about the development. Some, who did not want to be mentioned by name, said they don't "hear or see much of it."
Jim Blake says he usually does not even think about it because he lives so far away. But the former emergency services worker says growth in the city is good.
"When it's just around the corner from the fire hall, that's good," he says. "People get better service."
For Bernie McCracken it's not changes to the development that matter as much as what decisions city council makes. Ignoring the request of the local people, that's not correct, he says.
He also thinks the city is setting itself up to become part of Edmonton "by benign neglect." The more residential development becomes approved, the less people will be able to afford the taxes to live here, he says.
"St. Albert is growing as a residential area but it is not growing in business and industrial taxation," he says. "They annexed the land in the north and turned it into mostly residential."
But like Belley, he hopes the apartments will be priced well for young families. The cost of living in St. Albert remains a barrier for anyone in their 20s and 30s. None of his seven children live here, he says.
"I would hope, and I don't know the answer to this, that they have a provision for lower cost housing," he says.
Amacon's response
Amacon could not say how many people will one day live on the entire site. The developer is still figuring out the commercial and apartment unit mix, and how much parking is needed, said Simon Taylor, development manager, in an email to the Gazette later this week.
But he expects the two complexes will house between 250 and 320 residents. Construction on the buildings will start in mid-July. Traffic in the area will not be "adversely affected" during that time, he said.
During Monday's city council meeting, Mark Reid, a planner for Amacon, said they have also not decided how much they will charge future tenants. But they are happy to talk to city staff about how to support St. Albert's need for more housing diversity, he said.
"Affordable housing is actually considered many things in many different municipalities," he said. "It depends on how much you make, and what community you live in."
