The Town of Olds is taking an unorthodox step when it comes to the sale and development of an idle parcel of land.
Brent Williams, the Town’s Chief Administrative Officer, highlights the fact that intent has been give by the Town to sell the land located at 4818 51st Street for a price of $1 dollar – which is less than its market value.
Williams points out that the large quonset building on the land used to be the Town’s sand/salt shed. He says “this development at 4818 51st Street is not a brownfield. So it allowed us with the opportunity to either sell it for what it is an unserviced, uninsulated quonset which would be used largely for storage, more or less, or to try to move to a vision that hasn’t been captured yet in the East Olds Area Development Plan. That is what we hope to do here.”
He adds, it is already envisioned by the Town as a piece of the East Olds Redevelopment plan. Williams says “all the way to 54th Street in that hole strip in East Olds is a transition zone that this plan calls for mixed use which means, basically, commercial businesses on the bottom floor and residential units on the top floor. Town council, with research and recommendations from myself and administration, believe this is a worthwhile effort to try to encourage that type of development in East Olds after a decade or so of not seeing it. We’re hoping through redeveloping this property in partnership with a private developer, we’ll spur on other projects in this area as well.”
So even though it is unorthodox, Williams says this sale of this land for $1 is something that is available to the Town as per its legislation. He says “the proposal is to partner with a private developer to move forward a new development on that property. Specifically a mixed use, commercial, residential build. In such a scenario, the Town would sign a deal with Masterbuilt Projects and their partner and if the conditions are met and the building is built to what the Town envisions there for the zoning and the area redeveloping plan, the Town would transfer that lot for simply $1 to that developer.”
He adds, the Town just has to give the public the due course to respond, and challenge it if they don’t agree with it. Petitions against the Town’s proposal to sell the land at 4818 51st Street for less than its market value may be filed with the CAO. See more details online at Olds.ca/partnership. The 60-day appeal period is underway now.
