Private swimming lake a consideration for Lakewood Meadows

By Miriam Ostermann, Associate Editor

As Alberta’s recovering economy continues to impact the housing market, developers of one of Strathmore’s communities are thinking outside the box to attract buyers and provide an amenity that’s currently non-existent – a swimmable recreational lake.
The town’s developmental service department received an application to amend the Lakewood Meadows Area Structure Plan (ASP) to allow for a private, recreational lake.
The proposal would not only distinguish Lakewood Meadows by making it the first community in Strathmore to provide a lake view, but it would also offer year-round activities, providing residents with a recreational space and, in turn, aid in the building, development and sale of homes within the community.
While the lake is intended to be owned, operated and maintained by a private community association and result in yearly fees, the developers are investigating methods of providing other Strathmore residents with memberships; however, nothing has been confirmed.
“This development was approved a number of years ago in the area structure plan and the developers have found that they’ve had difficulty marketing the project as it currently stands,” said Ryan Roycroft, director of infrastructure and development services with the Town of Strathmore.
“They approached the town to be able to look at creative ways to reconfigure the area structure plan to create a more marketable solution. A privately owned swimming lake (is) an amenity for the development that really isn’t present anywhere in Strathmore. This would be a unique feature in Lakewood Meadows.”
Lakewood Meadows and is located adjacent to Hillview and near the North Boundary Road. When the Town of Strathmore sold the land to developers several years ago, it identified a requirement of 40 acres of the land to be used for a large storm pond. Not willing to determine an exact location for the 40 acres at the time to prevent intervening with future development, the town registered a rite of trust on the property. According to Roycroft, that rite of trust remains today.
“With the town being able to negotiate the collaborative storm water management initiative, so large-scale storm water management plan with the Western Irrigation District (WID) that generally changes how storm water will be managed within Strathmore, that entire 40 acres is no longer required for storm water purposes,” said Roycroft.
In turn, administration proposed keeping the 15 acres of land that will be required for storm water and making the 25 acres of land remaining available as a privately-owned swimming lake that could be used for swimming, paddle boarding, kayaking, canoeing, volleyball, hockey, ringette, skating, snow shoeing and cross-country skiing.
Discussions between the town and the developers and owners of the land have been ongoing for months. In conjunction with the private lake feature, the parks, pathways and other open spaces in Lakewood Meadows will continue to be public land.
The proposal is in its preliminary stages and details still need to be worked out on how the community association would be governed, how existing homes would be brought into the community association, how the lake would be filled and monitored, and how the current storm pond would be drained. The proposal was brought before council during their regular council meeting on July 18. No decision has yet been made. Council, with the absence of Mayor Pat Fule, did pass a motion to give first reading to Bylaw No. 18-13 and voted to hold a public hearing on Sept. 5 to receive input from the community regarding the issue.