Re: “City temporarily closes Lakeside Greens Golf Course development file,” article, Rocky View Weekly, June 24, 2021
Dear editor,
Slokker Homes would like to set the record straight; we will submit a formal proposal for redevelopment of the Lakeside Greens Golf Course property, of which we are part owners.
During the past few months, we’ve collaborated with many in the community on a vision that we believe can win approval by both City council and the majority of Chestermere taxpayers. We will continue this work and submit only once we have a solid proposal that benefits the wider community, rather than a few homeowners living in one neighbourhood.
The opposition is largely from those who have a personal conflict of interest regarding this development, and little interest in hearing about the wider benefits of our vision. They view the golf course as their own gated community.
We have committed to creating a generous buffer of natural landscape between existing homes and new, which will also include single-family houses like the ones that already exist in Lakeside Greens. Any higher density in this context would be townhouses and maybe one or two low-rise condos, all of which would be built much closer to our envisioned downtown, where we know many seniors and young adults are eager to find housing options.
The Lakeside Greens Golf Course Preservation Society is peddling a misleading myth. They are fighting the rezoning of the land on the argument that this, by default, will save the golf course. How wrong they are.
There is no correlation between preventing the rezoning of the land and keeping open a money-losing operation. Lakeside Golf Club is beyond saving, and not for lack of trying. The failure has nothing to do with bad management. To suggest otherwise is an insult to those dedicated and hardworking people who have been running the golf course all these years.
Refusal to rezone the land would be a double blow to Chestermere. The real danger for a community is when a golf course is abandoned as vacant land – especially when that property is in the heart of the city.
Our opponents would have you believe our plan sacrifices recreational space for new housing. They hope people won’t realize the recreational space currently offered by the golf course is private and benefits only paying members, the number of which has declined to fewer than 145 members.
We hope to increase Chestermere’s recreational space by 60 acres, about 40 per cent of the land that we promise to convert into public green space, including parks, playgrounds, tennis courts and the like.
Chestermere’s rapid evolution from a cottage village to a bustling city means it is missing a downtown, which redevelopment allows to situate in the geographical core of the city.
Our proposal expands the tax base, creates jobs, has the promise of being the first true bike-oriented development in western Canada, and benefits all 20,000-plus citizens of Chestermere by giving them a proper downtown and creating housing for people of all stage of life.
I encourage Chestermerians to inform themselves by booking a coffee meeting with me and contacting us directly at lakesidefuture.com
Peter Paauw
Slokker Homes president
