SASKATOON – Residents of a small farming community on the outskirts of Saskatoon have some celebrating to do.
Last week, they won a fight against urban sprawl, a beast that has prowled on southeast Corman Park residents frequently in recent years.
An organized and vocal lobby group stormed a meeting of the municipal council and stopped the most recent subdivision proposal, to put six houses on a quarter section in a zone of 80-acre parcels.
Local resident Kathy Chaplin said she was “elated” when council defeated the proposal even before it reached first and second readings.
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“We just don’t want to see the land gobbled up by subdivisions 20 years down the road,” Chaplin said. That’s what happened to the rural community just outside of Seattle where she grew up.
“We would have lost the character of the neighborhood with this subdivision,” she said.
Also lost would have been some of the quaint, country appeal of the bed and breakfast and vacation farm the Chaplains run, located directly across from the site of the defeated subdivision.
Rural municipality bylaws state only marginal land can be subdivided, and council won’t consider proposals to develop productive land. The parcel in question was somewhere in the middle.
The group presented a 95-name petition representing more than 80 percent of area residents asking council to scrap the development proposal and put a moratorium on further development in the area.
No moratorium
Coun. Allan Haight said council voted down the proposal due to the “swell” of opposition, but did not impose a moratorium on future development.
“I’m not sure we’ll do much for the next few years until this settles down but things do change and it is pretty hard to know what is going to happen 20 years down the road,” Haight said.
But Wally Lockhart believes councils should be ready with a long-term plan that protects the nature and characteristics of the community and people who live in it.
After nearly five years, Lockhart resigned from his elected position on Corman Park council over the burning issue of urban sprawl.
Popular area
“This is a hotbed of development,” he said. “There is magnified pressure because of the dollars to be made and Corman Park’s rules are not adequate to deal with it.”
The final straw for Lockhart came when council rejected a long-term sector management study outlining quality of life features the community wanted protected.
“It looked at overcrowding, excess traffic, water services – a vision that would reduce political manipulation and interference,” Lockhart said.
The Rural Municipality received 11 applications for residential subdivisions this year, 21 in 1995, 17 in 1994 and one in 1993. Twenty-one have been approved since 1994. Three of the 11 proposals submitted this year have been approved in principle, according to planning technician Ron Geib.
Haight said while he understands residents’ concerns about urban sprawl, the ‘not in my backyard’ sentiment played a role in the growing opposition to the subdivision.
“I understand their feeling but don’t agree,” Haight said, although he cast a vote against the development in response to his constituents’ opposition.
“There’s a place for some development and a demand for the lots.”
Bob Carmichael, the farmer who applied to subdivide 50 of his 68 acres into six-acre lots, can appeal the decision by applying again next year.
“Whoever is going to do it will really have to have their homework done,” Haight said.
Chaplin and the group of residents will likely do their homework, too.
But tonight, she said almost 40 residents are getting together for a potluck supper to celebrate their victory.
“It really brought the community together,” Chaplin said. “That is certainly one good thing to come from this.”
