It goes without saying that Chestermere is growing at an exciting rate. Averaging over 14% annual population growth for more than fifteen years and if Chestermere continues with its average growth rate from the past ten years, over 25,000 people will call Chestermere home by 2020.
Council, staff and most residents love Chestermere because of its community feel and strive to keep that feeling and its uniqueness, while growing at the same time. Sounds tricky? Well, Development and Infrastructure Services, with assistance from the City’s Enterprise Facilitator, began looking at possible methods of creating a transitional mixed residential/commercial area within new residential neighbourhoods. These ‘Live Work’ units would provide another method for the City to increase its tax base and provide residents with more opportunities to live, work and shop in Chestermere.
‘Live Work Unit’ means a single family, semi-detached or townhouse unit that contains dedicated floor space for the purpose of conducting work by the resident of the dwelling unit and non-resident employees, but does not include a Home Occupation. The live-work unit is actually an old idea that has been modernized to meet the needs of entrepreneurs, small businesses and professionals. You might have seen such arrangements in movies where the storekeeper lived above his shop or a doctor’s office was a room off his home’s foyer.
Permitted uses would be dwellings such as single detached and semi-detached, parks, townhouses and offices. Discretionary uses would be things like bed and breakfast accommodation, child care facility, convenience store, health care services, medical clinic, personal service establishment, pet care services, places of worship, public utilities, restaurants, retail stores, signs, small wind energy conservation systems, solar collectors, speciality food stores and take-out food service. The conduct of business would be limited to the hours of 7am to 10pm.
Although these buildings would be both commercial and residential, the exterior of these units would be keeping with the residential character. Front yards would need to be landscaped to meet with current residential landscaping bylaws and have a walk way.
Parking can be a very touchy subject in Chestermere as in some neighbourhoods, there simply isn’t enough. This could also be seen as a potential problem in a live work district, but the team that has been working on this fresh new concept, has implemented a system that would definitely keep parking and traffic flowing smoothly.
Residential parking would either be provided to the side or the rear of the principal building with commercial parking being at the front of the building. Each live work unit would be assigned one bicycle stall and driveways will be constructed as to not impede on street parking.
That being said, it is the hopes of City council and staff that having these live work units developed into neighbourhoods that also have only residential dwellings that residents would get out into the community and walk or bike to the businesses that would be in the live work units. A family bike ride to get a yummy treat on a hot day or a Sunday morning walk over to have coffee with friends. Regardless of what the businesses are, the hope is to have a unique and appealing option for business owners that wish to also live in Chestermere and to offer the residents of Chestermere more retailers while keeping that cozy community feel.
Mayor Patricia Matthews says, “I believe Council is hoping that by approving this land use change that we’ll see more stores open up. We have many entrepreneurs in Chestermere and this provides an option that doesn’t exist now- a storefront where you live.”
There are many people in Chestermere who operate businesses out of their homes. When you compare a live work unit to a major home business (current home business set up in Chestermere), there are some notable differences. In a live work unit, the business is considered to be permanent, there is no expiry, retail sales are not limited, the maximum business area is a 40%-60% and there is no limit on the number of employees. In the current Major Home Business, they are considered temporary, they do expire, retail sales are limited, only 20% of the home can be used for the business and employees are limited to one non-resident employee.
On January 19, 2015, the public hearing was held to change the land use bylaw 016-14, and with no opposition from the public, the changed was approved by Council. Where in Chestermere these units are being considered has yet to be disclosed, same with a date for development – but this will definitely be a new option for those entrepreneurs that already exist in Chestermere or possibly bring some new ones in.
