Coaldale resident raises concerns with 16th Avenue extension

However, according to Kalen Hastings, Coaldale’s Chief Administrative Officer, the extension has been in talks many years. In addition to 16^th Avenue, another entrance to the facility will be available off of 18^th Avenue. Hastings said as growth occurs in and around the joint centre, “additional vehicular entry ways will be created on the west side of the facility.”

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This is not the first time the location of the new high school has caused controversy in Coaldale. In February 2020, LNN reported on a petition that aimed to see a reconsideration of its location.

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Hastings said the westward extension of 16^th Avenue “has been public knowledge for close to 15 years, having been shown consistently in various public growth management documents and public engagement sessions since at least 2007.”

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Some of the public documents and sessions listed by Hastings, where the project was discussed, include:

Town of Coaldale Offsite Levy Report and Bylaw (published in 2007)
Town of Coaldale Capital Budget (2018-2021), approved and distributed publicly in November 2018
Joint High School/Multi-Use Recreation project open houses (February 2019)
Transportation Master Plan (2018-2020)
Municipal Development Plan (2018-2020)

Clive Schaupmeyer holds an honours degree in Plant Science & Soil Science from the University of Alberta and a master’s in extension education at the University of Guelph, and had a lengthy career in the potato industry, working as a consultant on projects across the country and oversees.

The 74-year-old has lived in the Garden Grove neighborhood for many years and maintained that “the public was totally shut out of deciding on where it [the joint facility] could go in 2018.”

He told LNN as far as the 16^th Avenue extension is concerned, there was “zero communication” with homeowners along the residential – no letters of a construction notice, etc.

Schaupmeyer added, “they had to pass a rezoning bylaw to rezone the west side of the quarter section where this development is going to be, and apparently they did ask adjacent landowners, [but] we’ve [16^th Ave. residents] received nothing.”

SEWER

Schaupmeyer noted heavy rainfall caused a sewage backup to several homes along 16^thAvenue and 23^rd Street many years ago. He said the Town of Coaldale acknowledged a problem with the sewer line, however, he stated that officials have done nothing to help fix the issue.

He said that he’s “guessing the school population could be as high as 700, I don’t know for a fact, but several hundreds students and staff, plus the gym. In total, there’s going to be several hundred people from eight in the morning to whatever, 10 at night.”

“They’re planning to hook the sewer from that development into the existing 16^th Avenue sewer line that has problems and has caused sewage backup in a few houses. There’s no indication that they plan to upgrade the sewer.”

On the town’s end, Hastings told LNN that capacity along 16^th Avenue has been confirmed to be sufficient for the school and the recreation centre.

Hastings stated that, “the portion of existing sanitary line between 23^rd Street and the road that serves the Garden Grove Manufactured Home Park is being replaced and upsized as part of the 16^th Avenue roadway expansion project.”

In addition, he explained that as development occurs in the town quarter, and capacity thresholds are reached for sanitary sewer lines, further upgrades will take place along the line that is in place at 16^th Avenue.

“The sewer issues that were caused in 2013 and 2014 were largely due to inflows from stormwater runoff and sump pumps being connected to the sanitary system in Garden Grove. These issues will not get worse with the introduction of the flows from the school and rec. centre.”

“This has been confirmed by MPE Engineering as a part of their modeling processes for the school and rec. centre site, and by Town infrastructure staff. Stormwater infiltration and inflow issues are also an area of focus with any upgrades that are planned and executed in the area.”

Schaupmeyer remarked that, “in writing, the CAO said we’re investigating the infiltration problems. They have done zero, say, remediation. Nothing’s been done to it.”

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

Schaupmeyer, now retired, is an avid photographer and one of his favourite spots is a new set of wetlands by his home. He said the road extension will cut through the middle of the wetlands and a popular public pathway.

He’s also concerned about the future of the nearby Alberta Birds of Prey Foundation, and how the centre could be impacted by the 16^th Avenue project.

“This 16^th Avenue extension will be one-metre from the existing pathway. That pathway is multi-shaped and goes all the way around some ponds but for 200 metres where people love to walk and they like to look at the birds, this pathway is going to be just like a sidewalk next to a road.”

He also noted guidelines put in place by the Government of Alberta for developments around bodies of water. Schaupmeyer said he spoke with an environmental expert, who informed him that the wetlands in his neighborhood are classified as “class 5 wetlands”. He said, “with a class five wetland, a road has to be a minimum of 20 metres from the water on either side. The road’s 22-metres wide plus 20 metres plus 20 metres is 60-some metres.”

“The guidelines also say 20-metres is fine except if there’s a slope, and if there’s a slope, you have to add a metre-and-a-half for every degree of slope higher than five degrees. Well, the slope is 20, 25 to 30 degrees, meaning you’d need 70 to 80 metres – see there’s two ponds, the pond on the north side [of 16^th Ave.] and a pond on the south side of where this road is.”

“Based on the Alberta government’s guidelines for the setback of developments from water bodies, this road will absolutely not conform to those guidelines set out by the provincial government.”

Schaupmeyer continued, saying he believes “there’s only one solution to meet the provincial guidelines – they’d have to fill in some of the ponds to make the causeway wider.”

Kalen Hastings addressed this with LNN, saying “the extension of roads like 16^th Avenue past constructed stormwater catchment facilities is not unique to Coaldale, and can be found in a number of other locations in Alberta.”

Some examples he used were the Ralph Klein Park and Education Facility in Calgary, the Sunridge development in Lethbridge and in Coaldale itself, “where the stormponds in and around the Birds of Prey Centre are bounded by HWY 845 to the east, and 16^th Avenue and Garden Grove to the south.”

Sunridge in Lethbridge, an example where a stormwater management facility with a constructed wetland component is surrounded by roads and houses in very close proximity to the facility. (Photo provided by Kalen Hastings, Town of Coaldale)

Hastings said, “it is also important to note that the stormwater infrastructure located in and around the site of the Joint High School/Recreation Centre is not a registered wetland and is instead classified as a stormwater management facility, which happens to contain constructed wetland components.”

“Therefore, the 16^th Avenue roadway extension project does not fall under the same guidelines as actual, naturally occurring wetlands with respect to setbacks from roadways.”

More details on the guidelines for constructed wetlands within a stormwater management facility are available here.

“Further, the 16^th Avenue extension project was designed by a professional engineering firm whose design followed engineering best practice when determining the size and placement of the roadway, which will be a minimum of five metres away from the top of each side slope.”

TRAFFIC

Traffic in the residential area will also be impacted by the extension of 16^th Avenue, according to Schaupmeyer.

He told LNN that “a few hundred people live in Garden Grove. I think the only school bus [in the area, buses] a few dozen students from the north side of the track to the schools on the south side. When the school is over here, they will be busing, I don’t know, 200 or 300 students.”

“You’ve got all this traffic and some of it will go west toward Bos Sod [Farms]. So, you have all this traffic headed north [during busy high school times], you’ve got sugar beet trucks going north and south, and potato trucks and school busses and that intersection is damn busy. It’s already a bit of a tangle.”

Schaupmeyer continued, saying that, “you’re headed north and your instinct would be that I cross Highway 3, I cross the railway tracks and I immediately would turn left on to what is 18^th Avenue – close to and more or less parallel to Highway 3 going west towards the school.”

“I guarantee when you’re going north at 8:30 in the morning and it’s busy as stink, there will be no left turn on 18^th Avenue – all but guaranteed because you would have to stop to turn left because you would have to yield to the oncoming southerly traffic, right? The sugar beet trucks and the other school busses and just general going to work traffic. You would have a bad backup across the highway going south.”

Google Maps image of 16 Avenue in Coaldale, with 18 Avenue, the railway tracks and Highway 3 visible to the south (Google Maps)

He believes that’s why 16^th Avenue has been designated as the main access road to the joint high school/recreation centre, “and residents of 16^th Avenue are not happy.”

One issues that’s also come up previously in relation to the location of the school is the train tracks north of Highway 3 that students will have to cross, with past critics calling out safety concerns for students making their way to school.

Hastings, meanwhile, said Coaldale’s planning consultants have confirmed that the way the existing portion of 16^th Avenue is currently constructed – in terms of lane widths and a sidewalk on the south side of the road – it is able to carry the expected additional volume of traffic to and from the school/recreation centre.

He said, “as is the case in any situation where new growth uses parts of an existing network (which is almost always), this part of the network will be monitored over time, and if/when upgrades are necessary, they will be budgeted and put in place.”

More details on the joint multi-use recreation centre and high school project are available at the Town of Coaldale’s website.

by Justin Goulet

Coaldale resident raises concerns with 16th Avenue extension

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