An open house outlying plans to expand residential development in Bearspaw was held at the Lynx Ridge Golf Club in Calgary May 1.
Iris and Ernie Damkars shared their vision for future development on their property, roughly 30 acres, adjacent to the Watermark development, along 12 Mile Coulee Road.
Immediate plans include gifting 10 acres to the Centre Street Church in Calgary so church directors can build another campus for their followers. Currently, the church has a campus in northwest Calgary made up of about 400 parishioners who meet inside the Cineplex/Odeon theatre in Crowfoot Crossing. As well as gifting the 10 acres, the couple is looking to have developers create 10 single-family residential lots.
“Currently we’ve been meeting at the Odeon in Crowfoot,” said pastor Lawson Brown. He said parishioners from Cochrane, Bearspaw and Calgary have been meeting there for the past four years and said they are “bulging at the seams.” He said a new church would help host the amount of people coming to the church.
Long-term, the Damkars said they want to see a senior housing facility constructed on the remaining land.
Iris Damkar said that as people get older and have to go into care homes, they are getting separated from their spouse.
“We need to rethink how we treat seniors and give them options,” she told a crowd of 50.
“We now believe we are in the position to plan for this in our senior years, we would like to see this in our day,” she added.
She also said she and her husband knew, when they were first married in 1961, they would like to leave a Christian legacy and that is why they decided to gift the land for a church.
The current design for the church include a 44,000-square-foot building that would seat 864 people and include a 22,000-square-foot gymnasium.
The 10 residential lots would run adjacent to the Watermark development. A future 15-acre residential area is earmarked for potential seniors housing.
Plans are yet to be approved by Rocky View County council.
Ken Venner, planner with Brown & Associates Planning Group, said once initial site planning and technical reports are completed this month, they will submit a planning applications to council for a land use and conceptual scheme amendments.
He said the Damkars land was always identified in the Watermark Conceptual Scheme for future development but the specifics for what type of development would be built on the land hadn’t been identified until now so the conceptual scheme must be amended.
If everything goes as planned, construction on the church would start in 2015.
“I think the plan is beautiful and I hope it is successful in getting done,” said Bearspaw resident Bev Woit after the presentation.
She added that ‘you can’t go wrong’ with a church.
Neighbour Esther Aichele also said she was “quite pleased” with how the architectural designs tied in to the design of the whole area.
She said she had concerns with the impact increased traffic could have on the road and said she would be interested in hearing more details on traffic plans.
For more information on the proposed development, visit fromthedamkars.com.
