Edmonton city council sends Holyrood Gardens proposal back to developer for more work
The Holyrood Gardens development is planned along 85 Street between 90 Avenue and 95 Avenue.
Kim Smith, Global News
Edmonton city councillors have said no to a developer’s current proposal for a massive apartment and townhouse development along the Valley Line LRT.
With an 8-5 vote on Monday, the proposed towers at Holyrood Gardens, next door to single-family homes across a laneway, were rejected.
“We have two sets of guidelines, neither of which we followed,” complained Councillor Ben Henderson, who led the referral motion to have Regency Developments work some more with city planning staff.
The proposed 1,200-unit development is planned along 85 Street between 90 Avenue and 95 Avenue. Its shape – long and narrow – has posed some design problems.
Henderson said his biggest worry is the precedent the project would set for other large-scale and transit-oriented developments (TOD) in the coming years.
“We made a number of commitments to all of our communities, not just this one, through what we said a neighbourhood stop would look like, for what we said the transitions would look like on large-site developments that we’re not adhering to in here.”
Mayor Don Iveson said that from now on, the planning department for TOD and large-scale projects will as a matter of practice run everything through the city’s design committee to make sure they’re suitable.
“I think there were some process issues with how this unfolded and some real design issues with how height, and particularly, fairly blocky height of these very, very wide towers was going to hit the adjacent neighbourhoods, literally across the lane and across the street.”
