At its Nov. 28 meeting, Rocky View County (RVC) council approved a permit for the development of a commercial kitchen and dining hall that will skirt the Elbow River flood plain, and will be used to service the children of Camp Hope, a camp operated by the non-profit organization, Hope Mission.
Earlier in the year, Arcadis Architects forwarded a proposal to the County to build a kitchen and dining hall that has the capacity to seat 120 people. The facility would be used primarily by the many kids that attend the Camp Hope summer camps that run from July to August.
Camp Hope operates on a nearly 100 acre property west of Calgary, and organizes summer camps for disadvantaged kids ages 6 to 17. A facility the size of the proposed build would service all of the camp's attendees and would be big enough to fit 30 staff or volunteers at any given time, according to the development permit submitted by Arcadis Architects.
Hope Mission leases the property near Highway 8 and east of Highway 2 near Bragg Creek, which has been designated as a summer camp in some form since 1957, and, according to the report summarized by the County’s planning department, will continue to lease the land until 2045. Currently, Camp Hope has several lodge buildings used for the year-round operations by staff and members of the camp.
Councillors voted unanimously to approve the building permit, however, the County did receive a message of opposition from an adjacent landowner who voiced several points of concern about the building’s development.
“It does not seem prudent to change a bylaw in order to allow a lease holder to build a kitchen and dining hall that is 7,500 sq ft in size,” said Tracey Feist, a landowner who lives on a property adjacent to Camp Hope, in an email sent for council's consideration. “This commercial style structure does not belong in a rural setting and does not align with the rustic nature that Hope Mission offers its campers.”
Feist mentioned that as a longtime resident of the area, she believes that the proposed building would be under threat of flooding, due to its proximity to the floodplain. She mentioned that in 2013, most of Camp Hope’s buildings were flooded.
In another email sent by Feist in September, she said “as a longtime owner in this area, I am concerned with groundwater flooding. The Springbank Dry Dam will not protect Camp Hope at the completion of the project.”
RVC Division 1 Coun. Kevin Hanson mentioned Feist’s letters during the council meeting; however, he said that since no new flood mapping has yet been released by the province, there is “no new news,” in regards to the concerns about the location of the proposed Camp Hope kitchen and dining hall. Feist’s concerns were acknowledged by several on council, but it did not dissuade them from supporting the approval of the development permit.
“I think we’ve done a really nice job of putting this right on the edge of the buildable lot,” said Hanson. “[This] shouldn’t cause us any problems in the future.”
