Golf course owner takes 1st swing at Kanata redevelopment

The owner of the Kanata Golf and Country Club has officially submitted plans to redevelop the 71-hectare course that weaves throughKanata, despite months of backlash from longtime neighbours.

ClubLink, together withlocal developers MintoCommunities and RichcraftHomes, is proposingturning half of the golf course into housing.

Another 20 per cent would be roads, six per cent parksand 19per cent storm water ponds or open spaces.

"We are pleased to share our conceptual plans for an exciting new neighbourhood that will enhance the use of this significant piece of land insideOttawa'surban boundary," saidRobert Visentin, ClubLink'ssenior vice-president of investments, in a news release.

Because fewer people are playing golf while the cost of operating courses keeps rising, the redevelopment proposal puts theland to better use, the companysaid the same rationale it offeredlast winter when itfirst shocked nearby residents with its plans.

• Kanata residents teed off over plan to swap golf course for housing
• City should take over golf course to halt development, Kanata councillor says

The proposal calls for1,500 new homes 500 each of single-family homes, townhouses and apartments as well as some kind of buffer between those and existing homes.

"Maximizing public access to green space has been a critical design principle in our planning," said Steve Grandmont, chief operating officer of Richcraft Homes.

At 27 per cent, that's more than typical housing developments, Visentin told CBC News.

Community readyingfor fight

Kanata North Coun. Jenna Sudds shared the news "with great frustration" on social media.

She hasbeen holding public meetings with residents over the past year, and said she dreaded the day the companies would submitadevelopment application to the city's planning department.

The City of Ottawa has already said it would fight the golf course owner in court if need be to uphold a legal agreement made in 1981 by the former City of Kanata.

• City ready to lawyer up to prevent golf course development

In the city's view, that dealrequires ClubLink to try to find another owner willing to operate the course, or give the course to the city. Only if the city declined to operate the land as a golf course could ClubLink redevelop it.

Clublinkhas had its own lawyers review that Kanata agreement.

"Our position is it's not a legal agreement and that's why we've pushed ahead," Visentin told CBC.

Neighbours in Beaverbrook and Kanata Lakes, however, have formed a non-profit coalitiontoraisemoney and getready for the city'sfight.

"ClubLink and its partners Minto and Richcraft have put the ball in play today," said chair Barbara Ramsay in a statement. "The Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition expects the city to quickly move a defence of the 40 per cent agreement to the courts and call the ball where it lies out of bounds."

While ClubLink movesahead with its plans in Kanata, a similar story is unfolding in Barrhaven.

Residents around the Stonebridge Golf Club are expected to receive mail-in ballots tovote on whether to pay a levy and buy the course from Mattamy Homesoncecity council allows the vote to proceed.