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“We spend so much time and effort on these plans just to walk away from them the first time someone says ‘Boo’,” said Henderson. “Mr. Dub’s situation is a really good example of why us playing fast and loose with our long-term planning is problematic. We make a set of promises and we’re not prepared to follow them.”

Dub’s narrow 10-storey Five Oaks building is under construction at 104th Avenue and 107th Street. The Edmonton design committee recommended he install solar panels because the entire block south has already been developed as three-storey condos.

Dub calculated the solar panels would provide all the electricity for the building and would have paid for themselves in 20 years, even if 20-storey towers were built on the Healy Ford site. Now they’ll never pay for themselves. Council seems more interested in the prestige of tall towers than in supporting attempts at alternative energy, he said.

Residents from Seventh Street Lofts, which will be overshadowed by the plan, objected most to the parking access through the back lane, where many of their units have front windows. Other residents suggested it would make for a much better community if the developer, Rise Real Estate of Ancaster, Ont., made two tall towers with a public square and patios in the middle.

Coun. Scott McKeen asked the developer to work with Dub to see if there is a technological solution that would allow the solar panels to work despite the new towers.

As for the alley, McKeen said the towers will actually enhance it. Several ground-level units and shops will front onto the alley and the developer will pay to repave it. “We could have an alley the likes of which we haven’t seen in Edmonton,” he said.

estolte@edmontonjournal.com

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