A Local Area Service (LAS) draft was approved by Cranbrook City Council on Monday, June 27 at a regular meeting of Council, in order to provide sewer service to the Shadow Mountain subdivision area.
One stipulation of the agreement is that the City owns and operates the entirety of the Shadow Mountain Sanitary Sewer Local Area Service Works, with maintenance and operational fees collected through the LAS or user fees.
This was approved unanimously by Council after a delegation earlier in the meeting from three representatives of the River Valley Estates team. Andrea Warketin, Ross Priest and Richard Hayworth presented their proposal to Council, with their main concern being the urgent need for sewer services to be installed in order to move forward with the proposed subdivision.
Councillor Wayne Price said that he is in favour of the LAS motion considering the urgency of the land owners and developers.
“They want project done almost yesterday. Basically the majority of the landowners have agreed - whatever option the city preferred, they were in favour of,” he said. “Secondly, when they’re willing to offer land for the pump stations and city requirements, I would certainly think that they’re doing as much of their share or more to get this project going. The only thing I would add to this is if we do accept, that this become a number one priority in the City and get this thing done. We’ve been talking about it for over a year. Put some hard timelines on it moving forward.”
Councillor John Hudak agreed, saying he had hoped there would be “pipes in the ground” already.
“I think it makes an awful lot of sense that we own this utility, as we do in the rest of the City,” Hudak said. “We’ve tried to do some things with the previous developer before; we’ve spent enough time doing our due diligence, I think it’s time to get on with this and I think it will be a great kick-start to developing these properties here and will be able to help us out with our housing crisis. I’m certainly in favour of making this a priority also.”
READ: City of Cranbrook to host open house for local area service in Shadow Mountain
READ: Controversial development proposal near Shadow Mountain passes third reading
Councillor Wes Graham thanked City staff for the time they have put into the LAS.
“I’d like to thank staff for time they’ve put into this, it has been a long time coming,” said Graham. “It’s been years that this has been talked about and debated around the table and it’s good to finally see it coming down to the brass tax, and starting to get some pipe in the ground. It definitely opens up areas and I’m excited for the future out there.”
There are several different phases to the subdivision project and a total of over 200 units proposed. In order for the subdivision application to move forward, a covenant requires that services be approved and brought in.
Phase One of the project is already completed and was done by another group.
As Hayworth explained, phase two is located near Parnaby Road and the parcel is already zoned. The group is looking to service the parcel in the fall of this year, and they are proposing 50 duplex and 28 townhouse units on the parcel, with a two year build-out planned for 2023 and 2024.
There is also a section os seven single-family homes to be located at the entrance of the development.
“We have looked at different ideas for that [area] but we’ve come back to what was originally envisioned as seven single-family lots, and that’s what we’re planning to do there,” said Hayworth. “We want to keep the continuity of the development through that road, through the entrance, so that it’s all consistent with what those original strata owners were expecting at the entrance there.”
He adds that they are looking to move forward with those units in the fall of this year, or sooner, depending on when the subdivision application is approved.
“Phase three and four [are] the remaining developments. We’re looking to service all of it in the spring of 2023,” said Hayworth.
Phase three would be 19 single-family lots and two 24-unit townhouse or condo sites.
“They will be offered for sale in 2023, and the single family would be built out in 2023. Then the condos and townhomes would be built out over two year periods in 2023 and 2024,” he explained. “Phase four would be 42 townhouse units coming down the west side of the road, [and the east side] would be 60 condo or townhouse units.”
He expects the 42-unit development to be built in 2024 and the 60-unit development to be built in 2025.
He says it is a higher density than originally planned, and they will look at obtaining approval for the higher density when they do the zoning this summer.
corey.bullock@cranbrooktownsman.com
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