Council has approved a plan that will see the former Highland Park Golf Course in the city's northwest transformed into a condo and retail development.
The facility closed in 2012 after 50 years as a private course and the land was eventually bought by a Vancouver-based development company that announced a housing development for the area.
The company plans to build more than 2,000 condo units, a shopping centre, pathways, roads and transit access on the site.
Residents of Highland Park, Thorncliffe and Greenview have been using it as a park for the last few years and some are concerned about the loss of valuable wetland, saying that storm runoff will have nowhere to go if the area is developed.
The president of Highland Park Community Association says there hasn’t been enough consultation with the community and residents want to see more protection for Calgary’s shrinking green spaces.
“We want the green space,” said Jill Kowalchuk with the Highland Park Community Association in January. “We want quality commercial development. We want more neighbours, we actually want more neighbours. We just want it to be a development that will bring that will raise the level of our community.”
The developer denies the lack of consultation, saying that it has worked with the community since 2013.
Dozens of people were in council chambers on Monday for the discussion and were disappointed by the decision to approve the plan.
"I think Highland Park Community Association and the other communities, Thorncliffe and Greenview, were really hoping for a better outcome, we saw ourselves as working together with the city and trying to be collaborative and come up with solutions and alternatives and that opportunity has now ended and we’re incredibly angry and disappointed," said Elise Bieche, community member.
The plan was presented to council in January but was sent back to add more trees and green space.
