OLDS — The Municipal Planning Commission (MPC) has approved two carports for the Mountain View Seniors Housing (MVSH) Lodge.
The lodge is located along 50th Street, just east of 54th Avenue.
Plans call for the carports to be built on the east side of the property, north to the alley between the lodge and the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 105.
Scott Chant, the town’s operations director, said MVSH always did plan to have carports in that property. He said the organization is now finally in a position to make that a reality.
He also said surrounding land owners had no objection to the proposed facility.
“I certainly believe that the residents deserve some covered parking and I’m pleased to see the seniors housing finally has the money to provide that for their residents and I would certainly support it,” said Coun. Mary Jane Harper.
Commissioner Dan Peters agreed.
“It’s a great development for our community there,” Peters said.
Commissioner Don Muir was concerned about how the facility would look though.
“What about the aesthetic values of this covered parking? What does it look like,” Muir asked.
Chant said he didn’t have any pictures of what the completed carports will look like but expressed confidence they would fit in well with the existing lodge, based on the town’s experience with MVSH and the facilities they’ve had constructed in the past.
“Definitely if they put up, you know, old wooden pallets and a piece of plywood and stuff, that’s not going to pass the building inspector’s (examination) or the fire inspector, but the architectural guidelines will be along the lines of the rest of the building that they have,” Chant said.
“I have no concerns that it won’t be done nicely.”
MVSH CAO Sam Smalldon confirmed the carports will look good.
“It’s all designed by an architect to match the building design and be architecturally pleasing, as well as very functional to meet the needs of the seniors,” Smalldon said during an interview.
The carports are for seniors who live in the facility’s life lease suites, he said.
Functionality includes having the carport attached to the entranceway of the building so that seniors are sheltered from cold or inclement weather.
Now that MVSH has received a building permit for the project, it’s anticipated that a test hole for the carports will be dug this week to determine how deep pylons for them need to go, he said.
Construction of the carports will then get underway with completion expected in December.
He stressed that the carport – and any other facilities that may be built on MVSH land there – will not encroach on the landscaped courtyard that extends north of the lodge.
“Any future developments will be at the back part of the lot that’s open grass,” Smalldon said. “So that courtyard will always stay as a courtyard and that’s meant to be the centre of the campus.”
