Photo courtesy of Colton McKee

By Scott Roblin

Planned Expansion

Medicine Hat Village mobile home park on track for expansion

Apr 8, 2020 | 5:15 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – A mobile home park located in the city’s south end has cleared its first big hurdle towards a major expansion project.

At Wednesday’s Municipal Planning Commission, an amendment to the Hamptons Area Structure Plan was unanimously approved which paves the way for an expansion of the Medicine Hat Village park.

MPC chair and councillor Brian Varga said it’s a positive step forward in adding more homes to the city.

“When it was first brought up a long time ago in the early 2000s the plan was to fill those spaces all up,” said Varga. “It’s come to this point where now in 2020, they might have that opportunity to do so. I think it’s a good news story that we’ll get some more tax revenue coming into the community.”

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The proposal comes after a change in ownership of the mobile home park from Lansdowne Equity Ventures Ltd. to Cove Communities, who are looking to revitalize and intensify the area.

This includes adding between 50 to 70 new manufactured homes, with up to 25 of those being built on the south end of the expanded property line.

Most of the new mobile homes would be placed in the already existing park with changes to the orientation of some of the current homes to solve what they call ‘inefficiencies.’

“I think there should be a mix within our community of what you can afford to buy and what you can afford to live in and call your own,” said Varga. “So, I think it’s important that we have a variety of different things that come into our community and this is one way of doing it. I don’t think we’ve expanded one of our parks for quite a while.”

Changes would also come in the vehicle access to the park, which would be consolidated from five accesses from 13^th Avenue SE down to two to improve safety along the busy stretch of road.

The development of an open space buffer between Medicine Hat Village and the Hamptons neighbourhood to the west was also brought up, though the specifics of what that buffer would look like are not yet known.

Varga said there weren’t any issues brought up at an open house last February and expects the buffer to provide some separation between the two neighbourhoods.

“The houses came after the trailer park was there, so they don’t seem to have any problem with it,” he said. “I don’t foresee any problems coming this way as long as they keep to the specs that they’re supposed to in building that buffer, whether it be a fence or a concrete wall or whatever it’s going to be.”

The amendment will now move forward to Medicine Hat city council, while a public hearing is required to be held prior to third reading of the bylaw.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic changing the way the City of Medicine Hat does business, they’re still accepting permitting and development applications through email or over the phone.

Varga added there are still some people in the community that want to start or continue construction and renovations to their homes and businesses.

“Business really isn’t as usual in most cases with everybody,” said Varga. “It’s good to hear that they’ll keep going with the email permitting and everything that can go on in the planning department. That’s a good thing that’s happening and it’s great that we can keep that up because there are some people that want to move forward with some of their projects.”

Those who wish to apply for permits, licenses, and building code inspections with the City can still do so by emailing pbe@medicinehat.ca, dropping off applications at City Hall, or by calling 403-529-8208 for residential buildings and 403-529-8207 for commercial permits.