"Proposal to add a seven-storey, 125-unit residential building south of the historic CP Rail Station on Gateway Boulevard (now MKT Market) and a three-storey sea-can market to the north. Beljan Development, which owns the land, including the station building, also wants to lease the adjacent city park on the corner of Gateway and Whyte Avenue.
application to rezone the commercial property and another to remove the park's municipal reserve designation (which prevents it from being leased).
The historic station would remain a protected historic resource."
However with a five-storey building already looming over it on the east, a seven-storey building to be built its south and a three-storey sea-can structure to its north, the historic railway station building, once among the most important buildings on the southside, will be almost totally hidden.
The park - a welcome bit of nature in a an increasingly-concrete jungle - will be wiped out. Right now, it provides a bit of rest of the eyes and nerves. It serves as a way to show that Strathcona was once something. In fact the park is the site of the first railway station.
Whyte Avenue should be more than just a line of bars and stores but a place for a truly urban experience. And the park is a place to sit and watch the world go by.
And know that if the city sells it to private owner,
the land will not be available in future for public use -
as site of a tourist booth, first-aid station, community centre, bike or electric vehicle charging station, LRT station, or any one of a number of purposes that may emerge in the future.
Are we really that stretched for cash that the City must sell off our parkland? Funny how right now both at city and provincial level, private entrepreneurs are eyeing our public parks.
Do they think that land will be scarce and much in demand in future? (Of course provincially, likely the prospective buyers want their hands on the oil that lies underneath the parks!)
Or do they just recognize the city council for what it seems to be - a weak government that will sell off its assets for short-term gain - and long-term pain (and disadvantage) for city citizens in the future?
A city that will give over its public sidewalks to private bar patios is obviously not one to stand up for public rights - but is one that would squander the public assets built up for the last 150 years.
Now that the city has been built up with combined public and private endeavour the city government is about to put it more of it into private hands for private corporations to derive the benefit and the profit that all have worked for.
A monster building on that site of course would shade the sidewalk and the busy sidewalk. probably even shading the north sidewalk and all the road, decreasing Edmonton's half-hearted attempt to build itself into a winter city.
That park - at a busy hub of foot traffic - serves as a gateway to Strathcona. It does more for that than the artificial arch on Gateway.
It is a place that shows Old Strathcona is not just a place to make money but a place to live.
If the park does not attract much activity, it is because of the roar of traffic for one. Concrete barriers around its west and north edges - leaving room for people to get through - would do much to make it quieter and welcoming place. And more benches.
But actually city has removed benches on the NW corner of 103 St. and 82, while on the SW corner allowing a bar to have its windows wide open - people lolling around and perhaps bothering passers-by is fine in a private bar open to the sidewalk but not for those on benches on a public sidewalk itself apparently. So the city, it seems, does not care about making things nice, making the people-part of streets (the sidewalks) welcoming and comfortable.
Not to mention the hazardous northbound cars turning right on red lights to go east on Whyte. It is surprising more pedestrians are not hit while crossing 103 or Whyte at this location. And yet the city does nothing about it.
Thanks for reading.
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The city's online portal for public engagement closed to comments on March 5. The next opportunity for public input is a public hearing before city council (likely in May) on an application to rezone the commercial property and another to remove the park's municipal reserve designation (which prevents it from being leased). The historic station would remain a protected historic resource.
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