Since Chestermere residents first learned about the efforts to build a unique adult living pocket neighbourhood on a neglected parcel of land on the east side of Chestermere Lake, the anticipation has been steadily building.
“While it’s true that a few of the neighbours backing directly onto the site were, and continue to be, opposed to the idea of the land being anything but a park, the ongoing feedback we’re getting is that there is a huge need for housing that does a better job of catering to the town’s older residents,” says Ryan Armstrong, General Manager with Lifestyle Homes. “Really the best measuring stick we have is the sheer number of people asking us how soon they’ll be able to move in.”
Armstrong is passionate about the project, but remains acutely aware that several milestones still need to be reached before any shovels can break ground. “We have a first reading with Council on July 7th, and our application is undergoing internal circulation with the Town as we speak. We really hope Council sees it for the opportunity it is to kill two birds with one stone – to provide high-quality, sustainable housing options for an underserved portion of Chestermere’s population, as well as to ensure that the land’s state of disrepair is finally addressed.”
Armstrong has been leading the charge to turn the site, located on the southern end of East Lakeview Road, into a crown jewel reflecting Chestermere’s progressive development goals instead of the dumping ground for construction materials and other trash it’s currently being used for.
Interestingly, Lifestyle Homes is already well into pursuing a second pocket neighbourhood development on a similarly neglected parcel in Okotoks. Armstrong explains, “The parcel was intended as a church site but had remained untouched for years. Okotoks already had a good number of churches serving the community, and like the site in Chestermere, the economics hadn’t been making sense. When the economics don’t work, even for churches, nothing happens for a long, long time.” Okotoks, with a similar problem of an aging population, was open to the idea; “The pocket community Lifestyle Homes brought forward addresses a significant need in Okotoks,” explains Okotoks town councillor Tanya Thorn, “We have an increasing population of active baby boomers that are looking to downsize and move away from the traditional two-storey home.” Colin Gainer, planner with the Town, acknowledges that most of the current housing stock in Okotoks “is traditional single family homes, which meets the needs of certain families but does not meet the needs of everyone who wants to live in town or to age in their community.”
“Okotoks has done a lot of really great things, like the solar community, that show they have a genuine desire to pioneer ideas beyond the normal row-on-row single family development,” says Armstrong. As a result, Okotoks has been especially quick in responding to the shortage as the Town’s planners intuitively understood how an adult-oriented development that addressed the needs of residents looking to downsize would work perfectly within the family-oriented community of Drake Landing. “Some of the knee-jerk reactions by residents from both projects at the outset were that this type of development should be placed far away from families and children. But what does that say about how we develop communities?” Armstrong notes how planners focusing on crafting healthier communities pay a great deal of attention to integrating multiple demographics, “What’s healthier for a child’s upbringing – seeing their grandparents every other weekend, or having them live just down the block so that they’re able to pick them up from school, make them dinner when mom and dad are working late, that sort of thing?”
Embracing the concept, Okotoks approved the company’s rezoning application this past May. “It’s funny,” Armstrong says, “we started this process in Chestermere first, and Okotoks second, believing we’d be in the ground in Chestermere long before Okotoks got rolling.” At this point, Lifestyle is already busy assembling all of the resources it needs to submit a formal development application to the Town of Okotoks.
Meanwhile, in Chestermere, efforts continue to focus on achieving the initial rezoning of the site from a Public Service District to a Direct Control district. “It’s challenging because you can’t win everyone over. The reality is that it’s highly unlikely the site along East Lakeview Road will ever be a public park, but because that’s the expectation some residents had and that likely factored into their decision to purchase where they did, nothing we do with the project will ever be able to compete with the idea of their home backing onto an open green space”. Armstrong understands how those residents might feel, but of all the likely outcomes for the site he still believes the project Lifestyle is pursuing is undoubtedly the cream of the crop, “The project is amazing. Each cluster of homes is built around common landscaped courtyards, and the residences themselves are going to be wonderfully designed and built to BuiltGreen Gold standards. Yes, the green spaces will be for homeowners in the project only and not the general public – it’s effectively their front yard, after all – but that doesn’t mean adjacent residents won’t benefit. It’s going to be a beautiful project to look out onto as well.”
Lifestyle isn’t taking that stance on public access in spite of the concerns of adjacent residents, but for the benefit of those residents that will call the project home. “The courtyards are meant for gathering with neighbours, visiting on the porch and watching the day go by. If they’re entirely public you lose a lot of that intimacy.” Armstrong is also aware that some feel that the development takes away from the spaces children have to play on throughout the community. “The school yard is directly north of the site, and it’s going to be the place children naturally congregate to no matter what this site becomes. It’ll be where they play during and after school, and with the sports field and playground available to them it’ll be the place parents take their kids for soccer games or simply to enjoy a summer’s afternoon.” Originally unfunded by the province, Lifestyle is also one of the major financial contributors to ensuring the East Lake School playground is finally built.
“We’re trying to add to the community, not take away,” Armstrong states firmly. “The reality is that the very nature of being neighbours means you’re impacting the life of others to a certain extent. But don’t Chestermere’s older residents deserve to be able to continue living in the town they’ve called home, many of which for their entire lives?”
