Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 10/2/2016 (1681 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

New developments in Winnipeg’s Parker neighbourhood will be separated from existing homes by hydro lines, the Southwest Transitway and a relocated dog park, according to a conceptual site plan.

Developer Gem Equities has taken baby steps toward a residential development dubbed Oak Grove, which would rise within what’s formally known as Parker, a triangle of unserviced land on the northwest edge of Fort Garry.

Gem’s owner, Andrew Marquess, acquired the land in a 2009 swap for a smaller portion of serviced city land alongside the Fort Rouge Yards. At the time, Parker Avenue homeowners as well as residents of the nearby Beaumont neighbourhood were taken aback by Marquess’s intention to build 3,500 townhouses on the site, which is a mix of aspen parkland and partly disturbed open prairie.

Since 2009, the development of the Parker lands has sat on the back burner while Gem Equities focused on the rest of the former Fort Rouge Yards, purchased by Marquess in 2008.

On Wednesday at the Holiday Inn South, consultants working for Gem unveiled a Parker conceptual plan that includes a mix of high-density towers, medium-density low-rise buildings and low-density townhouses and single-family homes, extending away from a transit-station plaza in concentric circles.

According to the plan, the station would be built on the north side of the Southwest Transitway, between Georgina Street and Beaumont Street. Towers would rise to the immediate north of the plaza, while low-rises would be built farther north to the west, where a park of unspecified size would preserve some of the existing woods.

Townhouses and single-family homes would be built farther west, while the Brenda Leipsic Dog Park would be relocated to the south, alongside a curve in the Southwest Transitway.

"What’s kind of unusual about this site is that there is a buffer. Hydro lines separate most of this from the existing development," architect Lawrence Bird said at the open house, held to gather feedback that would be incorporated into a future, more formal development plan.

Construction in the Parker neighbourhood remains years away. Gem Equities has only recently begun construction on one small parcel of the Fort Rouge Yards, after several years of delay.

Before Gem can follow suit at Parker, city council must approve an area plan, rezonings and development plans. In the meantime, some area residents remain skeptical.

BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Sherry Loat and Paul Bagamery hold up signs in protest of the Parker land developments.

"The city has to build where it has to build, but the process here seems flawed," Beaumont resident Angela Probyn said at the open house. "Just the way they got the land was flawed," she added, referring to the Parker land swap, pilloried as a "rush job" by a 2014 audit that documented fluctuating land values and improper assessments.

Outside the hotel, approximately a dozen protesters, including Manitoba Green Party leader James Beddome, lined up along Pembina Highway to decry the development of what they called the "Parker wetlands."

Beddome said he’s not opposed to infill development or bus rapid transit, but added "there must be better ways of doing that."

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca