September 14th has been set for the final open house on the Aldersyde East Area Structure Plan before the plan is presented at a public hearing at the MD of Foothills.

Kristi Beunder, senior planner and principal with Civic Works says they have made some changes to the plan after three previous open houses.

They removed a proposed highway commercial area and a land-lease modular housing area was changed back to regular homes.

"From this point we have made our application," said Beunder. "We want folks to have an opportunity to see what we have applied for, because up to this point it has been evolving and changing, but we have formally submitted so I want to have an opportunity to talk to people about what we formally submitted and what will be going to a public hearing."

She says the plan came together after the MD identified areas where they had priorities for agriculture and areas for growth.

'They did identify these lands as in the central district."

Which is an area for growth because of the infrastructure already in place.

One of the big concerns with the development is it is a much higher density than the surrounding acreages.

"Density has been the largest topic of conversation. We have not been able to depart from our objective of  three UPA, or three units per acre density, based on the fact that we are connecting to water and waste water system and not doing individual water wells and that comes with a price."

Beunder says they have put some designs in place to make the density a better design by using buffering and transitional densities in order to alleviate some of those concerns.

"Although those concerns don't ever really go away."

"Density and change is never an easy thing to accept, but we feel the application is appropriate. It is in the right place and it makes sense in terms of the futures of the municipality to put density in some places and take pressure off others. That is the whole strategy behind the growth management strangely that we are trying to align with."

The Open House takes place at the Highwood Memorial Centre on September 14th.

 

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