The remnants of the former Viscount Bennett School are coming down, but what may take its place is leaving many residents wary in southwest Calgary.
Demolition is underway at the school site along Crowchild Trail, which has been shuttered since 2018.
Minto Communities purchased the property from the Calgary Board of Education in 2023.
The developer has since applied to the City of Calgary to change the zoning on the site, to make way for several multi-residential buildings.
What’s proposed is eight buildings, mostly between four and six storeys tall, as well as a trio of 16-storey towers along Crowchild Trail that could accommodate up to 1,509 units.
“It’s like plopping the population of a small town in the middle of an established, inner-city community,” said Greg Williams, who lives nearby in Richmond Knob Hill.
Several residents in the community are speaking out over the proposal, citing concerns over a loss of green space and the potential impact on infrastructure in the area.
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Celia Meunier, who lives near the site, said her primary concern is the traffic impact in the neighbourhood, as there isn’t direct access to Crowchild Trail.
Meunier said cut-through traffic is already an issue in Richmond Knob Hill as well as Killarney, as drivers make their way to Bow Trail and 17 Avenue.
“We don’t want vehicles flying through residential roads,” she told Global News. “The lack of access is very concerning, it’s going to be a matter of time before somebody gets hit.”
The Richmond Knob Hill Community Association is asking city council to reject the application when it comes before them at a public hearing on April 8.
The community association’s president, Kevin Widenmaier, said the amount of density and building heights are excessive for the site.
“It’s much denser than our current neighbourhood, and much denser than what’s appropriate for the area,” he told Global News Wednesday.
According to a spokesperson for Minto Communities, “notable revisions” have been made to the proposal “based on community and city input.”
Planning documents show the building heights were scaled back from a maximum of 30 storeys in the original proposal, and the amount of anticipated units dropped from 2,503 to just 1,231 units in the updated plan.
“Minto is committed to responsible development that is well supported by city infrastructure capacity,” a spokesperson for the company said in a statement.
“As with all projects of this scale, transportation and utility planning will continue in coordination with the City of Calgary to support future residents.”
The proposal for the site received initial approval in a unanimous decision by the Calgary Planning Commission, with several conditions including infrastructure upgrades, improvements to three intersections in the area, and more than $1 million to build a new bus rapid transit stop along Crowchild Trail.
“The density is not just sort of thrown around on this site haphazardly — this is really good urban planning, in my opinion,” said Commissioner Jim Gordon after the proposal’s initial approval.
The Richmond Knob Hill Community Association put forward an alternate proposal for consideration that includes a larger park space, lower-density townhomes and apartment blocks no higher than five storeys.
“It still adds a lot of people to the neighbourhood, it would be a very large increase in the number of population but a lot more appropriate to what’s coming forward from the developer,” Widenmaier said.
Minto said it looks forward to city council’s upcoming consideration and “the opportunity to bring much-needed housing to this thriving inner-city location.”
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