Springbank ASP - New Draft & Survey

The County released the revised draft Springbank Area Structure Plan (ASP) on June 16^th.  There is an online survey that can be accessed here.  (The survey is about a third of the way down the page.)  The deadline for completing the survey is July 14^th.

This is an important opportunity to ensure that council hears your concerns and comments.  This council was elected on promises to listen to residents and reflect residents’ interests in their decision making.  To do that, they need to hear from as many of us as possible.  The online survey is the easiest way to be sure your voice is heard!

Administration will report to council’s Governance Committee in September on what they heard in this round of public engagement, including a tabulation of survey responses.  That meeting gives councillors the opportunity to provide guidance on possible amendments to this draft before it goes to a public hearing in early winter.

Although this revised draft is significantly better than the version pushed through by the previous council (and then rejected by the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board), it still has areas that raise potential concerns for residents.  These include:

• Cluster residential – now renamed as “open space residential” – retained in two large areas

• Commercial / industrial development around the Springbank airport

• Apparent lack of acknowledgement of transportation infrastructure limitations on Range Road 33, combined with troubling new descriptions for many roads

• Inclusion of “local” commercial in the community core along Range Road 33

• Questionable assumptions about servicing and its funding

We realize that the timelines for this engagement are tight and possibly inconvenient because of summer vacations, but it is critically important that the County and Council hear from as many of us as possible.  The loud concerns raised at the open houses make it clear that it is not just a few “hot heads” raising criticisms – but your input now will ensure that council gets that message as clearly as staff did at the open houses.

Open space residential – formerly known as cluster residential

• Proposed for two areas totaling 2,555 acres (12% of the ASP) – the six quarter sections straddling Township Road 245 east of Commercial Court and 10½ quarter sections south of Lower Springbank Road, east of Range Road 31.

• Will have a maximum density of 1.5 units per acre (3 houses on 2 acres) with minimum half-acre parcel sizes.  At least half of the land will be open space, but only half of that (25% of the total) must be publicly accessible open space.

  • Elsewhere in the ASP, minimum parcel sizes are 2-acres and 10% of the developable land must be publicly accessible municipal reserves.

  • Staff acknowledged at the open houses that future councils could decide to use the open space for other purposes.

• The open space can include environmentally sensitive areas (environmental reserves elsewhere), stormwater infrastructure (public utility lots elsewhere), golf courses, small-scale agriculture operations, community & recreation facilities, pathways and trails.

  • At the open houses, staff indicated that residents’ desire for more pathways and trails was part of their rationale for “open space residential” development.

• The area along Township Road 245 could have 20% of its housing dedicated to “home based business hubs” – formerly known as business-live-work.

  • Residents can already have home-based businesses throughout the County, so there are concerns that these may have looser rules than standard home-based businesses.

  • Council is in the process of eliminating the business-live-work land use that was available on the east side of RVC because of significant problems with it.  Given that, it is not clear why it should be included here, especially when there is no apparent demand for them.

Springbank Airport Employment Area

• The ASP identifies 7 quarter sections (1,120 acres) around the Airport along Township Road 250 and Range Road 33 for commercial / light industrial development. 

• The County is only now undertaking an assessment of whether there is any demand for this much business development in Springbank.

  • Given the vacancies in Commercial Court and how long it has taken development to start at Bingham Crossing, it is not clear how much additional demand there really is.

• Although the ASP states that one of the key principles guiding development in this area will be “safeguarding the amenities of existing adjacent residents”, this appears to be focused primarily on providing 50-metre setbacks between business operations and residential properties.

• The ASP does not appear to recognize that adding this much commercial / industrial development will have impacts beyond the aesthetics of such operations.  (See below.)

Transportation Issues

• The ASP largely ignores the impact its proposed land uses will have on Springbank’s transportation infrastructure.

• This was a clear concern raised by many people at the open houses, who see Springbank roads, especially the Range Road 33 / Highway 1 interchange, as barely coping with existing traffic volumes.

  • There is significant skepticism that new development will be required to upgrade roads on a timely basis.  The 15 – 20 year lag between Rocky View’s development in Balzac and at Cross Iron Mills and upgrading of that area’s interchange with Highway 2 raised concerns that Springbank would suffer similar delays.

• The ASP has quietly changed the labels for many of Springbank’s key roads.  They had formerly been referred to as regional arterial roads.  They are now referred to as “industrial / commercial collector” roads.

  • There is no detail on what this name change implies, but it does not sound promising in terms of maintaining the country residential character of Springbank’s communities.

Community Core

• The draft ASP continues to identify the area along Range Road 33 between Highway 1 and Springbank Road as the “community core”. 

• Future development in this area will largely be determined by a county-led concept scheme to be undertaken after the ASP is approved.

• As well as community and institutional uses, the ASP anticipates local commercial business operations along this stretch of Range Road 33.

  • While many people have indicated a desire for some local commercial businesses, it is not clear whether these could be financially viable without significant increases in residential densities.

Water & Wastewater Servicing

• The draft ASP states that there are cost-effective and sustainable servicing options to support the higher residential development and increased business development proposed in the ASP.  However, it is not clear how viable those are.

• The “most feasible” regionally supplied water and wastewater system (Maps 10 & 11) extend servicing from Harmony along the Hwy 1 corridor and down the east side of the ASP.  This would service 2,050 acres of the ASP’s 21,000 acres – about 10%.

• This system appears to be the full-build out recommendation from the 2020 Servicing Study prepared for the previous version of the ASP.

  • The cost estimates in that Study were $341 - $386 million for piped potable water and $229 - $286 for piped wastewater infrastructure – a total of $570 - $674 million.  In comparison, the East Rocky View water/wastewater system cost just of $130 million.

• The main message in the draft ASP is that infrastructure will be paid for by developers.  However, for developers to do that densities need to be very high.  That reality makes the final policy in the wastewater section quite concerning,  It states that “the municipality reserves the right to provide or assist with the provision of a wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal system within the Springbank area”.

  • This suggests that we may end up with another “build it and they will come” system like the one in east Rocky View.

• For the 90% of Springbank that will not be serviced by piped water/wastewater servicing, the draft ASP recommends “piped” servicing without specifying what is meant by that term.  In earlier drafts, the area not serviced by regional piped infrastructure was to be serviced with stand-alone septic fields or communal wastewater systems, which may require treated wastewater ponds.

  • The current draft makes no mention of communal wastewater systems, leaving a concern that “piped” systems is their new name.  Although these systems treat wastewater to a higher standard than septic fields, they still dispose of their treated wastewater on-site.  With Springbank’s high water table, piping in potable water and then disposing of treatment wastewater on-site leads to rising water tables over time.