A political battle going on at City Hall today pits a community league against the Salvation Army, one side seeking approval for a redevelopment project, the other trying to stop them.
At the centre of the debate is the Crossroads Community Church, on the corner of 95th Street and 116th Avenue.
The building has been closed for years, but the Salvation Army has plans to redevelop it.
Members of the Alberta Avenue Community League appeared before the city’s development appeal board today, asking the city to block construction of the church, for a second time.
At issue, is whether the building planned for the site would qualify as a church or a social services agency.
“It was not operating, in our mind, as a church, it was operating as an intensive social service building,” Cris Basualdo, the community league’s development director, told CBC News.
“We had issues of prostitution off the steps, we had issues of drug dealing in the alleys.”
Basualdo said the Crossroads doesn’t belong in a residential neighbourhood across from a seniors centre.
This isn’t the first time this battle has been waged. In October 2013, the community appeared before the same appeal board to argue its case against the project.
In that case, the city sided with the community.
But the Salvation Army reapplied, and Basualdo said this time a different development officer decided the rebuild can go ahead.
Maj. Danielle Strickland with the Edmonton Salvation Army said the church has tried for the past two years to reach some agreement with the community.
“The community that we’re running is not a social service centre, it is a church,” she said. “It always has been. I’m an ordained clergy that’s in charge of running a local church in community.”
Strickland said the only social services program the church runs is a winter warming centre for homeless people in the basement. And that’s only open during the cold months.
“The only other thing that we run is a thing for women who are prostituted in that neighbourhood,” she said. “Every night we have a volunteer team that goes out on the street, to offer those women a way out of prostitution.
“And we drive them to a shelter or take them to a safe place. Almost every time, we drive people out of that neighbourhood. So, in some ways, we should be the best friend of the community league.”
Strickland said she’s frustrated the community keeps blocking their plans.
“They simply, I believe, have a bias. They want the poor in somebody else’s neighbourhood. I feel like if we were talking about any other people group, this would be an unacceptable conversation in Canada. But because we’re talking about the poor, it seems to be allowed.
“I think one of the misnomers in this whole thing is that the Salvation Army has brought poor people to that neighbourhood. That is not the case.”
For her part, Basualdo said the community has no plans to quit fighting if the development board rules against them.
“If we lose today we’ll be … looking at taking it to a higher court,” she said.
