After 13 years, multiple legal battles, a dispute between the then MD of Foothills and the Town of Okotoks and ultimately nothing to show, Okotoks has finally been able to say goodbye to Wind Walk.
The residential development was never ‘the norm’. The high-density development was proposed just outside Okotoks borders at a time when the Town still had a 35,000 population cap and was worried about the amount of water licenses it had to sustain future growth.
The backing of Canadian contractor and TV personality Mike Holmes also made the proposed residential development much more high profile than usual.
However, Wind Walk was a tall order under the circumstances and continued to be fraught with problems and opposition from the Town.
Okotoks lost a three-year court battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court in 2013 to challenge the Area Structure Plan approved by the MD of Foothills, costing the Town more than $40,000 in legal costs.
In 2017, the Town of Okotoks annexed the land where Wind Walk is slated to be built. It looked like Wind Walk might finally see the light of day as the Town worked with the developers to allocate water to the site and an altered plan for a first phase was approved.
However, the development continued to struggle most recently with the developer of the site going into receivership. The original owner of the site tried to re-acquire the land and revive the dream, but it was too late.
This time the Town got the answer they have been seeking for years and were given the legal go-ahead to take Wind Walk off the books and start again.
