Parker Lands project moving forward

Fort Garry

Grant Park

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This article was published 17/04/2024 (548 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After more than a decade, the Parker Lands development — to eventually be called Fulton Grove, in its finished form — was approved by the City Centre community committee at its April 4 meeting.

Approval from the committee meant plans moved further up the ladder of the civic approval process. Council’s property and development committee voted in favour of the proposal on April 11, and it now awaits approval from the full city council.

Fulton Grove will add 1,918 multiple- and single-family housing units on 47 acres of south Winnipeg land bordered by the CN Railway Rivers line and by the southwest rapid transitway. Gem Equities developer Andrew Marquess has had the project in the works for 13 years.

Last year, the City of Winnipeg was found liable for consistently delaying the project and ordered to pay $5 million in damages. It is in the process of appealing that decision and subsequent award in provincial court.

Marquess, who has been vocal about the benefits of the project, which will provide affordable homes in a neighbourhood within accessible reach of rapid transit, resubmitted the Fulton Grove application the committee last year. It received mixed opinions from councillors at the April 4 meeting but was approved in the end.

“At the end of the day, we did look at whether the residents had indicated their support or not,” said Coun. John Orlikow (River Heights-Fort Garry).

“The concerns I did read, I read about 12 or 13 letters or the phone calls we got were generally about two points. First thing was traffic. There is going to be a change on Beaumont Street and we’re going to have to find ways to mitigate it.”

Turning Parker Lands into a Parker neighbourhood, Orlikow said, will raise the population in the area by 200 per cent.

“People get confused,” Orlikow said.

“It’s a new neighbourhood but it is adjacent to the Beaumont neighbourhood. Beaumont neighbourhood has about 2,000 residents. This will have 4,000 — which I think is a low number, more like 4,500-plus — but we’ll see what the build-out is. So it is a very large impact for the Beaumont neighbourhood.”

The second issue discussed was greenspace.

“I heard today, and I appreciate it, ‘is having a soccer field the best use of space for this area?’” Orlikow continued.

“And I actually say, ‘Yes, it is.’ Because we have 4,000 or 5,000 people going to an area that doesn’t have any field space. So that was a real big concern of mine before.”

Orlikow said that although he has worked around the issue, the city will work alongside Manitoba Hydro during the development process, and public green spaces will be included to mitigate the land being lost.

“Based upon the housing stock that we need, based upon that I think I can find the extra greenspace.”

Many other issues were discussed at length, such as railway safety, sharing space with the Humane Society, and the spacing of the projected houses.

“What the heck are we doing here?” Marquess said in the meeting.

“The process, again, has been fatally flawed in all this. I’m truly confused why it was so fatally flawed, why we’re being treated differently … It’s just common sense, logical language. We want to maximize the capability of that site.”