Philco Farms, the developer for the southside community of Southbow Landing, will be back in council chambers May 23 for first reading of land use approval for phase one of the future development.
Council narrowly approved the development in the fall of 2015 in a 4-3 vote; in its entirety Southbow would be built-out for around 9,000 residents and would have considerable mixed-use commercial development.
Coun. Morgan Nagel was one of the councillors who voted against the development.
He continues to be concerned that the development is being approved before a binding agreement on land access for the bridge has been carved out and would rather see the lower density residential come out of the gate before the high-density product – as is contained in phase one.
An open house held at Cochrane Toyota May 15 drew some area residents in to take a closer look at what the planned 1,370-residential unit development and mixed-use commercial site with a rough 10-year build-out timeline would look like.
Bev and Bob Dominique have lived in the nearby community of River Heights since 2013. The former Calgarians love where they live and showed up to the open house because they want to keep apprised of the development in their community.
Bob said they think the plan looks good overall, “as long as they bring James Walker Trail in soon enough” – with reference to connecting to the roadway that will be realigned as part of the bridge construction.
The pair said one of the bigger challenges in their community is the absence of a grocery store or any amenities.
The addition of some mixed-use commercial would afford solutions to this problem – something that was pointed out by area residents who petitioned against a future Nissan dealership in the area with added residential development instead of commercial.
The permit for the future dealership has been approved and construction is anticipated to begin as early as this summer.
Phase one includes one full and one partial designated school site. The developer is seeking primarily single and two-dwelling (duplex) residential designation (R-2) with some single detached family housing product (R-1).
This phase contains an estimated 48 per cent of the total residential housing product for the entire development of Southbow – which will be divided into either two or three phases, according to the developer.
