Ramsay residents bid goodbye to `contentious' chicken plant
Standing on the porch of his Ramsay bungalow on Wednesday morning, Edgar Bowles takes a satisfied sip of coffee as he watches an excavator tear down the walls of the former Lilydale chicken processing plant across the street.
“This is the best thing I've ever seen happen,” said Bowles, who bought his 9th Street S.E. home in 1991.
After decades of being a thorn in the side of Ramsay residents, the decommissioned poultry plant's demolition officially began on Wednesday, making way for the city to lay track for the future Green Line.
Kolja Vainstein, president of the Ramsay Community Association, called Wednesday a “great day” and a “a major milestone” for the inner-city neighbourhood. He noted some Ramsay residents complained for years about the smell, noise and truck traffic associated with the site's operations.
“The facility has been in the neighbourhood for decades and it's been contentious,” Vainstein said. “I think the neighbourhood is extremely excited to see the building come down.”
Watching chunks of the plant come down on Wednesday, Ramsay resident Robin Tufts said the building 's demolition represents a transition for his community that has been years in the making.
“We were told when we moved into this neighbourhood that the chances were the plant would be closing in five years — and that was in 1992,” he said.
“The hope of it being closed down shaped our family life and the neighbourhood worked very hard to make that happen.”
Politically, efforts to relocate Lilydale's poultry plant date back to the 1990s and 2000s, when NDP MLA Joe Ceci was the Ward 9 alderman and the plant was owned by Pinecrest Foods.
But no deals could be reached at the time and the facility remained.
The city began negotiations with Sofina Foods Inc. to purchase the facility in 2017, eventually taking possession in January 2022.
Sofina Foods relocated its Lilydale plant to a larger, more modern factory in the Dufferin North Industrial Park in southeast Calgary last year. The future Green Line will pass through Ramsay on the site of the former poultry plant.
Addressing reporters on Wednesday, Green Line CEO Darshpreet Bhatti said pre-construction work on the project is well underway, with the goal to start laying track in 2024.
“This is first. Next year we'll be tackling Eau Claire, which is a much bigger facility than this one,” he said. “They all need to be done to make sure the lands are ready for our contractors to use them as staging grounds or for future construction.”
While residents were pleased to see the plant coming down, not all were as happy with the future plans for the area.
Bowles said he's in favour of the LRT project, saying he used to think about selling his house but is now thankful he decided to keep it, as he expects its value to increase.
Others are more skeptical of the train's impending arrival. Residents such as Shauna Bellerose and Dean Breiter, who live a few blocks from the former processing plant, are worried the Green Line will spur massive residential redevelopment in Ramsay.
“They're going to put highrises down here, especially with the (city) just passing their housing strategy,” Breiter said. “It's been really limited around here for a long time — height restrictions and things like that.”
On Wednesday, Bhatti confirmed the city's long-term plan is to establish mixed-use transit-oriented development in the area, with proposed ideas for both housing and retail in between the two future Green Line stations in Inglewood and Ramsay.
Bhatti called construction of the Green Line a “catalyst” for future revitalization along its route.
“For us, the biggest advantage of this acquisition wasn't just the LRT,” he said. “It's really an opportunity for redevelopment.
“Within five, 10 years, you start really seeing the change. Constructing the LRT is just a first step ... the planning has to go hand-inglove with it.”