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Arlington Drive editorial angers reader

I would like to clarify some misleading statements in ‘Opponents muddying Arlington waters.’ Fact: The Protestant school board does own the property but they can’t do with it as they please.

I would like to clarify some misleading statements in ‘Opponents muddying Arlington waters.’

Fact: The Protestant school board does own the property but they can’t do with it as they please. The land is not zoned for medium-density residential. It is zoned for institutional as a result of community input on the potential sale of the land for a church.

Fact: How do you know a school would generate significantly more traffic than this development? School traffic is slow and generally safer than regular traffic. Fifty-eight more homes with potentially double that amount of vehicles will definitely have a negative effect on Arlington Drive. It’s only common sense.

Fact: Is there supporting evidence that the proposal will not drive down property values? If you had over three, two-storey low-income townhouses stretched across your back fence only 23 feet away looking straight into your bedrooms, do you think you might have a problem selling? Common sense.

Fact: The townhouses not only do not have basements, they have no backyard and only a four-foot by four-foot storage area. The area from the back door of the townhouses to my yard is consumed by a drainage ditch. I suspect families will be encroaching on this ditch if they want to have barbecues or let their kids play in a pool or whatever. They have nowhere else to go.

Fact: Most residents would prefer the land remain as a green space but would probably be open to development if they were asked what they would accept in their community. The sale of this property to Habitat for Humanity goes back to 2007 when council applied for grant funding from the provincial government. No one directly consulted with the Akinsdale community. We only heard about it in late 2009.

Fact: The $840,000 the city is giving Habitat for Humanity is not all provincial grant money — $126,000 is coming from the City of St. Albert. People should be concerned about this since the land was sold to the Protestant school board in 1979 for $1.

Fact: The space was intended as green space. When the subdivision was developed the land was designated as reserve by the developer due to the requirements at the time for the amount of reserve land in a subdivision. Lots that backed onto the property were shortened 10 feet because they backed onto this green space.

Fact: Council should not ignore the concerns of local residents. That is what they are there for — to make sure we are not adversely affected. Over 90 per cent of Akinsdale residents feel this development in this small piece of property is not right for the community. They are not against affordable housing but rather the proposal itself, as it is a detriment in so many ways.

If Habitat for Humanity would consult with communities before they enter them, maybe there wouldn’t be so much opposition. But they choose to stuff as many units into a small space as they can so they, as well as the developer, can make as much profit as they can.

I am a St. Albert resident and proud to be living in Akinsdale. There are good people living in Akinsdale and I am disheartened that we are being looked at in a negative way for opposing a development that we feel will have a negative impact on our community.

Gerald Kress, St. Albert

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