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A 22-home island in the middle of a man-made lake in southeast Calgary will become the city’s first gated enclave in more than a decade.

Calgary Planning Commission’s decision on Thursday rejected a 2001 council directive banning gated communities, and set what some commissioners worry is a precedent.

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But Hopewell Residential had already had council’s blessing years ago to build a pair of private residential islands with private roads leading to them on a pair of lakes in Mahogany, near the ring road’s southeast corner.

While some planning commissioners argued this was a philosophically bad move, others reasoned that the gate would simply protect a private island that would be off-limits to trespassers in the first place.

“This is essentially a gated community without the gate,” Colin Friesen said.

Now, Hopewell will be able to set up a gate at the base of the private bridge to the exclusive island. There are a handful of gated neighbourhoods in Calgary, but after the last ones were built in 2001, a council motion banned gates on private residential roadways.