The City of St. Albert is facing a showdown from residents of the Akinsdale neighbourhood who are opposed to the Habitat for Humanity affordable housing development slated to be built at 70 Arlington Drive.
Currently, the location on Arlington Drive is an empty field owned by the Protestant School Board, but they are looking to sell the land instead of building on it themselves. Habitat for Humanity stepped in to make a bid for the land to build a housing development.
Residents are furious.
In the most recent issue of MacEwan University's newspaper, Intercamp, one Akinsdale resident was quoted as saying the affordable housing "It’ll be like dropping a ghetto into the middle of town."
The writer of the Intercamp article has a different view.
“It’s about time,” I thought to myself. “Plenty of people can’t afford to live here. It’d certainly help a lot of people out,” said Vance Ternowski.
Unlike many of St. Albert's affluent citizen, Ternowski is not one of them. He struggled to afford a meager townhouse, and is now headed to the cheaper Southside of Edmonton.
"It's as though Edmonton is St. Albert's affordable housing," said Kacie Duncan who lives down the street from 70 Arlington Drive. "Residents act like they want to keep housing prices high to keep poorer people out."
Akinsdale
The Akinsdale neighbourhood was established in 1973. There are nearly 1700 occupied dwellings and various amenities like the Akinsdale and Kinex arenas. In addition to the sports facilities, Appleyard Square offers a convenience store, pub, salon, and pizza place. For a larger shopping experience, the Akinsdale neighbourhood borders the Gateway Village shopping centre.
Akinsdale has parks dotted throughout. The largest park being the one located behind Elmer S. Gish elementary School. This park hosts soccer field, a baseball diamond, and outdoor rink, and a playground.
This is the problem for residents of Akinsdale- especially the residents on Arlington Drive. In order for the affordable housing to be built, a large section of green space needs to be destroyed.
During summer, kids, adults, and family pets can be seen tearing around the field. Some use it for fun, other use it for organized games. All but the playground on the north end of the park will disappear.
On the snootier side of the matter, residents whose houses back onto the park claim the housing prices will decrease, while traffic and crime will increase. This is always a possibility, but not a guarantee.
The reality of the matter is that there's a giant plot of land in the middle of a neighbourhood that the Protestant School Board is paying annual taxes on, and they want to get rid of it. An organization is willing to buy the land and put it to good use.
But many of the people living in Akinsdale fear change, and they fear coming into their neighbourghood potentially asking for it.
Someone is going to lose this battle. And from the looks of it, the City of St. Albert and Habitat for Humanity are going to get their wish, while the residents may feel they'll be getting their worst nightmare.
Picture one courtesy of staycanada.ca
Picture two courtesy of premieresuites.com
Appleyard Square also hosts a high quality music lesson studio and music retail establishment!
ReplyDeleteIt is so sad when people write drek like this, before they check their facts.
ReplyDeleteFor instance:
* Qualico Homes sold that piece of property to the school board for $1, with the expectation that a school would be built on that site.
* Based on this sale, Qualico informed all future home purchasers backing onto this property that it would be school grounds. FURTHERMORE, these future property owners LOST approximately 10 feet off the backs of each and every one of their lots - to make that plot of land available.
* Flooding in that area is quite common and the plans submitted by HfH would have future homes backing onto drainage ditches.
* Home prices DO decrease, as noted by experts in the real estate industry.
* When the school board decided they no longer needed this property, it was offered to the City of St. Albert, where it would have been appended to the current park. Unfortunately, SOMEBODY dropped the ball and this did not occur (like it does throughout the rest of the city).
* Due to this mix up, the City of St. Albert ended up purchasing the land from the school board for $840,0000.00. That's a pretty good return on their money, to be sure.
* In the City of St. Albert, when a development permit is requested by a property holder - letters are sent out to each and every resident in the general vicinity asking if there are any objections. That did not happen here.
* Just 2 weeks prior to the request for quotes to build these HfH structures, the head of HfH stepped down - his construction company had won the bid. Sound fishy to you?
* The original number of units on a plot less than 3 acres was set for 64.
* Residents surrounding the property hired a lawyer to fight for their rights, only to have the city legal dept ignore any and all requests for information. They ended up with a large bill and the city laughing at their audacity.
* HfH assured everyone that all funding was in place to complete all structures on that property within a certain period of time.
* HfH arrived, cap in hand, asking for the leftover $515,000.00 that was to be distributed among other affordable housing agencies - because they wanted to finish the structures on Arlington Drive?
* Townhouses and condominiums are quite prevalent in the areas of Grandin and Akinsdale. FURTHERMORE, the prices HfH intends to charge for their homes is considerable HIGHER than some properties currently for sale with more amenities.
These are only a FEW of the things that went on, throughout the whole process. I am sure that if you check, you will find even more disturbing facts.
That is, if you are interested in facts at all...
Hi. I don't remember being approached about this article at all. I know it's 3 years ago and all that, but I don't think I'm that hard to find. In any case, I just wanted to say that I'm slightly misrepresented in this piece. I did leave Akinsdale, but moved elsewhere in St. Albert before I went to the south side. And that wasn't a financial decision, just a rad house decision. No need to imply that I'm poor.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I assume this was part of an assignment, and it's long in the past now, so no worries. But maybe try to check with people you're quoting, if this is something you're doing regularly. Ok, thanks bye.