A 15-year-old vision to redevelop land along Edmonton’s Fort Road into an urban village is falling flat, city councillors heard Monday.
The city, in collaboration with the Fort Road community, launched Station Pointe in 2004 “to create a more affordable alternative to urban sprawl,” the city’s website says.
On Monday, members of the Fort Road Business and Community Association were at city hall to share their frustrations with council’s executive committee.
Deanna Fuhlendorf, the association’s executive director, said the project had all the right intentions.
“I think the plan was good,” she said. “I don’t know if we were ready for it.”
The land, from 66th Street to 127th Avenue, is largely an open field with signs indicating that most of the land is for sale.
The only new housing complex under construction is on hold. The project at 403 Belvedere Gate is fenced off and no work is being done. Builder BCM Developments didn’t return a request for comment Monday.
Fuhlendorf said the location, near the Belvedere LRT station, is ideal for students and seniors.
“The things that we envisioned never came about,” she said. “It’s 2019. That’s a long time.”
Opposes soup kitchen
Hon Leong, a member of the business association and the owner of Plaza 66, told the committee he spent millions to redevelop the corner over the course of 10 years.
When he bought it, the plaza was a medical centre and an IGA. The grocery store was knocked down to make way for two separate retail/office buildings, Leong said.
“We’ve spent a lot of money in this area when nobody wanted to come into this area,” he said. “I could have built on 124th Street or other areas where people care about.”
Last week, he got notice from the city saying a permit has been granted to change the approved use of the dormant Transit Hotel across the street, from a pub/bar to a restaurant.
He believes the permit was given to a social agency to run a soup kitchen in the old hotel.
“It’s discouraging,” Leong said. “Overnight my property can depreciate in value from several million to who knows what.”
The city’s urban form and strategic planning department confirmed a non-profit called Niginan Housing Ventures filed for the change of use for the hotel and received discretionary approval for the permit.
Niginan Housing Ventures is a supportive housing operator in Edmonton. The group is behind Ambrose Place east of downtown.
Ward 7 Coun. Tony Caterina said Station Pointe was the first transit-oriented development plan the city approved, as part of the Belvedere community revitalization levy, or CRL.
“We’re $95 million into the CRL that we committed or we had to put in there in order to develop this, and so far, there’s been zero return,” Caterina said Monday.
“That is absolutely frustrating, yet it doesn’t seem that administration, and I would probably [say] council as well too, haven’t had the urgency to move this project forward.”
Caterina asked administration to look at speeding up Station Pointe development to tie in with other projects in the area, including the Yellowhead Trail expansion and revitalization of the Belvedere LRT station.
He said one reason developers have avoided buying land in the area is the zoning, which he described as ‘onerous’ in its demands, making it too challenging for developers to live up to.
The city is now working on rezoning the land to make it more inviting for developers.
“This is the time now to take everything into perspective and to actually group everything together in the planning of this area.”
Caterina noted that the city has been eyeing the Transit Hotel property for some time as an ideal spot that could “satisfy a lot of issues that we have transportation-wise in that sector of the city.”
He said the city may now be in a position to buy the property, move the hotel or demolish the hotel.
The city told CBC News the business licence for the hotel was no longer active as of December, 2018.