The private gravel haul road to re-route gravel pit traffic around the Cochrane community of River Heights opened Aug. 22, after some three years in the works.
“This is a win-win deal for everyone involved and the residents,” said John Robinson, president of Green Drop Inc. — the gravel pit operator.
“It was a cooperative effort with neighbouring landowners (namely Philco Farms) and was funded by Tamani Communities (Riversong developer), LaVita Land (The Willows developer) and Slokker Canada (owner of lands north of River Heights Drive),” explained Robinson.
“The alignment (of the gravel road) is on the future alignment of James Walker Trail,” said Robinson.
The gravel pit is located at the far east end of River Heights Drive.
With complaints from residents in the community over the industrial traffic and resulting dust and noise, Robinson said that the gravel pit has been operational since before development in the area (2005) and that the project took time to come to fruition as “a lot of consideration was given to future development of that area”, as well as the consideration of a number of players involved in the process.
“Negotiating access agreements was finalized late summer 2013,” said Todd Schaan, CFO for PBA Land (sister company of Philco Farms). “Once that was finalized it was up to Green Drop to make it all happen with the preparation of the land.”
The project was originally slated for an earlier summer completion, but heavy spring rainfall resulted in project delays.
Mayor Ivan Brooker has said that finding a solution for a new route for the gravel haul operation has been a town priority for some time.
