Community
Why are we in such a rush to build 50 houses along Piper Creek? I thought we liked our parks.
There may be very few of us current Red Deer residents, living in Red Deer, or possibly even alive, when and if they ever build the bridge for the Molly Bannister Drive extension. Why must we have to respond to the city by August 31, 2020? Why is the city rushing to decide on Sept. 14 2020 an issue decided several times over past decades?
The proposed extension would go from 22 St. and 40 Ave. along the power lines to the creek the north along the creek to a proposed bridge to connect to Molly Bannister Drive.
The bridge was planned for the traffic that a population of an 180,000 residents, would have. Our current population is about 101,000 and has increased by only 195 residents in 5 years. Let us say they build the speed train from Calgary to Edmonton with a stop in Red Deer, estimated to be completed in the year 2030. Suppose our population starts to grow at 2% per year in 2030 and hits 180,000 30 years later. 40 years from now.
Traffic patterns may change, and the bridge may not be needed. The current thinking is and has been that it will be needed. Even the spokesperson for the developer of the Bower land, acknowledged at a public meeting in the Bower Community Centre, that if we got rid of the right of way now, “it would be difficult for the city to build it when they needed it”.
The question is not whether we should keep the right of way for possible future requirements but do we need 50 houses built along the creek, now?
Remember our population increased by 195 residents in 5 years, but we built 1290 new homes in the same time span. Also remember that our homes depreciated 2% last year, to compensate for over building.
Our tax base did not increase as the developer would have you believe, only spread out over more houses.
Depreciation of our homes facilitates downward pressure on market value for our homes, pushing many first home buyers into negative equity positions. Keeping many, first home buyers, out of the housing market. A strong disincentive, for buying in Red Deer.
We have seen what is happening on 32St. and 19St. with increasing traffic. Millions recently spent on the 32 St. bridge over Piper Creek due to shifting. Many animals are being killed trying to cross 32 St. and 19 St. disrupting their corridor along the creek. An animal prison, with none of the confining walls, associated with a prison.
The developer wants to build 50 houses along the creek. Fenced yards, lawns, non-native plants, fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, insecticides, pets and humans, all encroaching on the very land we are protesting a bridge to protect.
The only winner will be the developer. He will profit and everyone involved, now or in the future, and the wildlife will suffer. Unless our population grows our homes will depreciate. The wildlife will have more barriers and less space. Traffic will increase, noise levels will rise, and more traffic fatalities but the developers will make money.
I was involved in a conversation yesterday that shook me to my boots. It involved extending Spruce Drive south past 32 St. to tie into the new subdivision eliminating tying into Molly Bannister. Taking out all those trees to run a 4 lane road south to 22 St. would be ludicrous to say the least. Someone heard it somewhere.
Everyone would lose except the developers. Speaking of money, a few years ago the developer came to city council and a councillor mentioned that he received donations from this same developer and as such he should remove himself from the vote. The general consensus that many received donations and it was unnecessary to do so. Now if this developer is a prolific donor to municipal politicians, should it not be disclosed by the Mayor and all city councillors, if they had received gifts, meals, donations etc. from this developer, before they vote on removing the Molly Bannister Extension road allowance.
Other issues involve more costs to the lowly taxpayer if this removal is allowed. Widening 19 St., widening 32 St., a possible $20 million dollar traffic circle at 40Th Ave. and 19 St., to name but a few. Increase in traffic only metres away from 292 homes, along 32 St. Increased traffic along 19 St. All affecting living quality and house values.
Another big concern raised is that hikers, bikers and skaters would have to cross the road. I am sure the city could install a crosswalk.
Commuting is another issue. Anyone living now or in the future along 22 St will have to travel several extra kilometres traveling east or west. They will have to go north to 32 St. or south to 19 St.
The new development if it is 50 hectares at the city requested 17 homes per hectare would see 850 new homes and at an average of 2.5 residents per home would see 2125 new residents. Entrance and exit would be only onto 40 Ave. So they would then have to drive east to 40th. Ave. before heading north to 32 St. or south to 19 St. before heading west.
Thousands of cars driving 4 extra kilometres a day burns a lot of fuel and emits a lot of pollution. Tens of thousands, of cars from all the other neighbourhoods along 22 St. will have to drive around the new subdivision will burn and emit more.
Everyone loses, future residents lose, wildlife loses, drivers lose, home owners lose, taxpayers lose, but the developer wins.
Why the rush? The developers may make less but they will still profit if the right of way remains. They will just make more if you remove the right of way.
Red Deer community let’s give a round of applause to the incredible adults shaping the future of our kids. Whether they’re a coach, neighbour, teacher, mentor, instructor, or someone special, we want to know about them!
Tell us the inspiring story of how your nominee is helping kids grow up great. We will honour the first 100 local nominees for their outstanding contributions to youth development. It’s time to highlight those who consistently go above and beyond!
To nominate, visit Events (sparcreddeer.ca)
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy
Fuelled by the deadly manufactured opioid fentanyl, Canada’s national drug overdose rate stood at 19.3 people per 100,000 in 2022, a shockingly high number when compared to the European Union’s rate of just 1.8. But national statistics hide considerable geographic variation. British Columbia and Alberta together account for only a quarter of Canada’s population yet nearly half of all opioid deaths. B.C.’s 2022 death rate of 45.2/100,000 is more than double the national average, with Alberta close behind at 33.3/100,00.
In response to the drug crisis, Canada’s two western-most provinces have taken markedly divergent approaches, and in doing so have created a natural experiment with national implications.
B.C. has emphasized harm reduction, which seeks to eliminate the damaging effects of illicit drugs without actually removing them from the equation. The strategy focuses on creating access to clean drugs and includes such measures as “safe” injection sites, needle exchange programs, crack-pipe giveaways and even drug-dispensing vending machines. The approach goes so far as to distribute drugs like heroin and cocaine free of charge in the hope addicts will no longer be tempted by potentially tainted street drugs and may eventually seek help.
But safe-supply policies create many unexpected consequences. A National Post investigation found, for example, that government-supplied hydromorphone pills handed out to addicts in Vancouver are often re-sold on the street to other addicts. The sellers then use the money to purchase a street drug that provides a better high — namely, fentanyl.
Doubling down on safe supply, B.C. recently decriminalized the possession of small amounts of illicit drugs. The resulting explosion of addicts using drugs in public spaces, including parks and playgrounds, recently led the province’s NDP government to attempt to backtrack on this policy — though for now that effort has been stymied by the courts.
According to Vancouver city councillor Brian Montague, “The stats tell us that harm reduction isn’t working.” In an interview, he calls decriminalization “a disaster” and proposes a policy shift that recognizes the connection between mental illness and addiction. The province, he says, needs “massive numbers of beds in treatment facilities that deal with both addictions and long-term mental health problems (plus) access to free counselling and housing.”
In fact, Montague’s wish is coming true — one province east, in Alberta. Since the United Conservative Party was elected in 2019, Alberta has been transforming its drug addiction policy away from harm reduction and towards publicly-funded treatment and recovery efforts.
Instead of offering safe-injection sites and free drugs, Alberta is building a network of 10 therapeutic communities across the province where patients can stay for up to a year, receiving therapy and medical treatment and developing skills that will enable them to build a life outside the drug culture. All for free. The province’s first two new recovery centres opened last year in Lethbridge and Red Deer. There are currently over 29,000 addiction treatment spaces in the province.
This treatment-based strategy is in large part the work of Marshall Smith, current chief of staff to Alberta’s premier and a former addict himself, whose life story is a testament to the importance of treatment and recovery.
The sharply contrasting policies of B.C. and Alberta allow a comparison of what works and what doesn’t. A first, tentative report card on this natural experiment was produced last year in a study from Stanford University’s network on addiction policy (SNAP). Noting “a lack of policy innovation in B.C.,” where harm reduction has become the dominant policy approach, the report argues that in fact “Alberta is currently experiencing a reduction in key addiction-related harms.” But it concludes that “Canada overall, and B.C. in particular, is not yet showing the progress that the public and those impacted by drug addiction deserve.”
The report is admittedly an early analysis of these two contrasting approaches. Most of Alberta’s recovery homes are still under construction, and B.C.’s decriminalization policy is only a year old. And since the report was published, opioid death rates have inched higher in both provinces.
Still, the early returns do seem to favour Alberta’s approach. That should be regarded as good news. Society certainly has an obligation to try to help drug users. But that duty must involve more than offering addicts free drugs. Addicted people need treatment so they can kick their potentially deadly habit and go on to live healthy, meaningful lives. Dignity comes from a life of purpose and self-control, not a government-funded fix.
Susan Martinuk is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and author of the 2021 book Patients at Risk: Exposing Canada’s Health Care Crisis. A longer version of this article recently appeared at C2CJournal.ca.
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