Sylvan Lake town councillors are anxious to avoid seeing another eyesore sprout up on their community’s most prominent corner.
Shell Canada has decommissioned a gas station that stood for many years at the corner of 50th Street and Lakeshore Drive. The oil company applied to the town recently for a demolition permit to remove the last traces of the gas station kiosk and remove underground fuel tanks.
Once the site is cleared, Shell wanted to gravel the corner lot and surround it with chain-link fencing until the site can be sold.
Councillors expressed reservations with that plan.
Couldn’t the site be covered with dirt and seeded for grass instead, asked Coun. Laverne Asselstine.
Coun. Sean McIntyre said Shell’s plan for the future of the corner “just seems a little grey to me.” An empty fenced gravel lot was not a standard he could accept, and he doubted most residents would be happy to see that, he added.
Others on council suggested the corner could be left gravelled but turned into a temporary parking lot to help out downtown businesses.
Mayor Susan Samson said while a parking lot doesn’t fit in with the town’s vision for the waterfront area, it might be useful as a temporary measure.
All of council was united in not wanting the site surrounded by fencing.
This is not the first time council has wrestled with improving the aesthetics of the 50th Street corner.
A long-delayed hotel project on the opposite corner got as far as creating an underground garage.
The concrete pad of the parkade roof sat for years, bundles of rebar sticking up from it and weeds sprouting in the cracks.
Eventually, after much negotiation and threats of legal action, developers and the town worked out an agreement to improve the site, which has now been replaced with an iron fence and grassed, although it is closed to the public.
Council voted unanimously to defer the demolition permit until town planning staff can discuss the future of the corner with Shell.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com