Month: June 2020

On Sunday, June 7th, 2020 the business owner of the proposed bottle depot, Mr. Kam Khamba and sons, extended an invitation through Deer Ridge Community Association to tour the East Hills Bottle Depot location and discuss the proposal for Deer Valley Village Plaza location.

The tour and meeting proceeded on Tuesday, June 9th, 2020. In attendance were four Board members from Deer Ridge Community Association, one Board member from Parkland Community Association, and Parkland resident/owner of “Engaging Imaginations Childcare”. Also, in attendance, was a representative of the Deer Valley Village Plaza landowner.

The East Hills locations is a shopping area similar to Deerfoot Meadows with a concentration of retail stores. It is a new development with no residential homes yet built adjacent to the shopping area.

1. Outside Valet service:

Employee brings shopping cart to customer and aides with loading from vehicle to cart. Valet escorts customer into the depot directing customer to a station. Valet was seen sweeping front parking area.

2. Inside Front service:

Upon entry, a very tidy clean presentation and no off-putting odours. Floors are have appearance of wood/vinyl fabrication, similar to local coffee shop. No loose garbage on floors or counter areas. There is a sitting area with coffee table and upholstered furniture chairs. A coffee station is at the front wall. Beverage container receiving stations surfaces are stainless steel. Garbage bins are present at each station. Bottle counts are done manually by employee and entered into computer networked at each receiving station. There are multiple hand washing stations for customers. An ATM kiosk is used for dispensing of bottle refund.

3. Back area for sorting and storage:

The sorting and storage area appears organized and well-stacked. There are clear areas for employee movement. The Deer Valley Village Plaza will be not be forklifts for movement of containers.

4. Items of discussion:

When asked why locate bottle depot in residential area we were informed having bottle depots in malls such as the one in Deer Ridge is becoming popular for easier access to residents.

The East Hills location and the proposed location in Deer Valley Village Plaze are both 6000 sq ft. The East Hills location has approximately 12 employees full & part-time. In the summertime this increases to 15. Employees are resourced from an agency however the business owner is open to considering submitted applications of local residents. Agency employees car-pool to work. Employee vehicles would be not be parked at the Plaza. The East Hills locations has a very high ceiling with HVAC (air exchange) located on the inside ceiling. The building height of Deer Valley Plaza Village will remain the same, HVAC to be installed/upgraded on the roof.

There are no plans for an after-hours drop-off of beverage containers. Consistent, accurate bottle counts are very import to the business owner. Any concerns regarding a count will be quickly addressed. When asked if any storage or pallets will be outside we were told all storage will be kept indooors. The business owner will endeavor to keep parking area clean of debris and fluids. The property management company is responsible for parking lot maintenance. The business owner expressed a keen interest to work with the daycare owner to resolve traffic concerns in the parking area, such as moving business entrance to furthest end of business frontage away from daycare. The landowner representative informed us additional measures can be taking to control flow of traffic in the parking lot.

Owner was made of issues with outdoor cart storage such as potential for wayward carts hitting vehicles, carts being removed from premise. Presence of valet employee may mitigate this when available. Owner seemed will to consider keeping carts indoors. During close of business hours, proposed bottle depot will use roller security screens over the windows to protect the business. These are similar to what the optometrist business has at Deerpoint Plaza. The business owner was made aware of frequent graffiti in the neighbourhood. The landowner representative mentioned property management company is responsible for removal of graffiti and site/building repairs.

The business owner has a community service program for local organizations’ bottle drives such as Scouts, Guides, etc. Program includes depot adding 10% funds to the group’s beverage container refund.

http://www.bcmb.ab.ca/whats-new/depot-relocations/

“Pursuant to policies established by the BCMB, any person who is directly affected by a proposed relocation may submit written concerns regarding the application to: info@bcmb.ab.ca

Written concerns must be submitted by the deadline specified in the Application details listed below. Submissions should be detailed and must include the reasoning behind their support or objection of the proposed relocation. Please quote the Application Number, identified below, in the subject line of your email

AMPM Bottle Depot: May 26, 2020

AMPM Bottle Depot has applied to the Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB) to relocate the Depot, currently permitted at 130, 10725-74 Street SE, Calgary AB. The proposed new location is:

1172 & 1176 – 137 Avenue, Calgary AB

Submission Deadline: 4:30 pm on Friday, June 12, 2020

Please be advised that the above submission deadline has been extended to June 19, 2020

Application Number: BC-20-028
“

Note: Please be advised the posted lawn signs regarding Proposed Bottle Depot are from a third party neither endorsed by the Deer Ridge Community Association nor were we notified of the intention to distribute throughout Deer Ridge and neighbouring communities. Also note the email address on the signs implying contact for Deer Ridge Community Association is not our email.  We welcome your email to DeerRidgeCA@gmail.com

There is a new business proposed for Deer Valley Village Plaza located at 1172 & 1176 137 Ave SE. Current businesses in the Plaza are: Expanding Imaginations Child Care, Bow Bottom Veterinary Hospital (clinic and boarding services), Fancy Taste of China (restaurant), Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy, and Lighthouse Pub.

The proposed business, “AMPM Bottle Depot”, is a “full service bottle depot with on site storage” (as per the owner’s statement). Within the Plaza it would be located between the Fancy Taste of China and Bow Bottom Veterinary Hospital.

In Alberta, Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB) is the oversight authority of bottle depots within the province.

“The Beverage Container Management Board was established as a management board under Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act. It is also a not-for-profit organization incorporated under the Societies Act of Alberta.

The BCMB is responsible for regulating Alberta’s beverage container recycling system, and leads the development of policy and programs that enable the recycling of beverage containers in Alberta.”

Bottle depots locations require BCMB approval to operate. AMPM Bottle Depot has applied to the BCMB.

Within BCMB Governing Documents BCMB Governing Documents is “2019.11.20.Depot.Bylaw.BOARD.APPROVED.pdf”. On Page 16, Item # 10.20 is a relevant statement regarding parking: “In Metro Areas, a Depot must have designated customer parking for a minimum of twelve (12) vehicles.”

City of Calgary Land Use Designation and Bylaws

The application is to relocate Depot currently permitted at 130, 10725-74 Street SE, Calgary to 1172 & 1176 – 137 Avenue S.E., Calgary.

The City of Calgary Land Use Bylaw webpage may be used to download a “.pdf” of “Calgary Land Use Bylaw 1P2007” as well as launch Interactive Land Use Bylaw search tool to view zoning of locations.

The proposed new location in Deer Ridge Village Plaza 1172 & 1176 – 137 Avenue S.E is zoned as:

Land use district: C-C2
C-C2f2.0h16 Commercial – Community 2:
C-C2 is a community commercial designation is primarily for commercial developments such as strip malls and shopping centres that may serve several surrounding communities. Typical uses may include retail, per-sonal service uses, professional office, entertainment and automotive uses.

Designation C-C2f2.0h16 has very specific permitted uses. Details may be viewed at Calgary Land Use Bylaw online by navigating to PART 7 – DIVISION 5: Commercial – Community 2 f#h# .

A request has been sent to Ward 14 Councillor Demong to clarify the applicable permitted/discretionary uses as related to the proposed bottle depot.

Email sent to residents June 4th, 2020 from Ward 14 Councillor Peter Demong:
Subject: Proposed Bottle Depot in Deer Valley

Hello Residents of the Deer Valley Area,

I want to make you aware that the operator of the bottle depot currently located at 130-10725 74 ST SE is applying to relocate operations to 1172 – 1176 137 Ave SE.

The first step in this process is for them to gain approval from the Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB) of Alberta. The BCMB is currently taking written submissions from any directly affected persons, and I encourage anyone who believes they fit that description to submit their comments by visiting https://www.bcmb.ab.ca/whats-new/depot-relocations/.

Should they receive approval from the BCMB, their next step will be to apply for a Land Use Designation change from the City of Calgary at that location. Throughout this process you can contact me by visiting http://www.calgary.ca/contactward14. I would also strongly recommend visiting http://www.calgary.ca/ward14updates to sign up for updates from my office. I will use those updates to inform you of important dates in the process.

Sincerely,

PETER DEMONG
COUNCILLOR, WARD 14
Office of the Councillors, 8001B
P.O. Box 2100, Station M.
Calgary, AB T2P 2M5>
Phone: (403) 268-1653 \ Fax: (403) 268-3823

Email sent to Deer Ridge Community Association deerridgeca@gmail.com June 6th, 2020 from business owner:
subject: Proudly Relocation a Modern facility of Bottledepot in Deer ridge business centre

Hello respected Community members,

We would like to formally introduce ourselves and would love to be a part of your community. Firstly, we’d like to ad-dress any questions or concerns around moving another recycling centre within the Deer Ridge community.

We understand the perception of what a traditional bottle depot feels like. We’d like to step in and say that our recy-cling facilities main focus will be to create a recycling experience where you actually want to come back. Our goal is to make the recycling process enjoyable. Most bottle depots can be sticky, smelly and frankly most of the staff can be rude and inconsiderate when it comes to engaging and providing satisfactory customer service for residents. In regards, we completely understand that the industry standard is not high and there may be some resistance to wanting another stinky and poorly managed facility to devalue the neighbourhood. We believe that there can be a shift in the paradigm of how recycling can feel when the time comes to clean out your garages or empty your homes.

Our depot will be focused on 3 main core principles: Integrity, cleanliness and hospitality
These measures will be derived mainly by the points listed below and our two other main locations can be referenced and visited to provide a deeper understanding of how this new facility will be.

– Valet service: We understand that having to haul all of your recyclables from your home to the facility can be tedious enough, so in order to alleviate stress and difficulty we have someone come out and greet you, help you unload and bring you to the fastest sorting lane. (We have two valets on the weekends if necessary)

– Environment: Our Valets are also responsible to make sure the floors aren’t sticky (we mop the floors safely up to 50-100 times a day), garbage bins aren’t overflowing, hand wash stations are managed, washrooms are kept clean and proper organization of the lines so that people can have the shortest wait times possible. We install Citron hygiene air fresheners: Keeping the environment from smelling like stale milk or whichever residue is left from the recyclables.

– Warm friendly staff: None of our guests are treated like bottles. Each staff member is proficient in english or an on site manager is able to address any sort of miscommunication. We focus on training and hand picking our staff so they can build trust and security with each individual from the moment you enter the facility.

– Trust: bottle depots have a bad reputation for ripping people off or short changing their clients and we completely dis-agree with this poor practice. All our depots are built around transparency and counting out loud to go along with screens that display what’s been counted in real time. So if you have a concern you can stop the count and voice your concerns before your counts are completed.

Our main focus is to change what it means to be a bottle depot and we would love for your community to be apart of that.

For reference please visit our FaceBook pages for both locations below or simply search us on Google

East Hills Bottle Depot: https://www.facebook.com/pg/easthillsbottledepot/reviews/
Sage Hill Bottle Depot: https://www.facebook.com/pg/sagehillbottledepot/reviews/

At this time we would love to welcome anyone who would have any further questions or concerns to visit one of our currently operating locations for some coffee and an explanation on how we wish to create an experience your com-munity can be proud of!

Have a great weekend,
Kam Khamba
Founder

Please be advised the posted lawn signs in the community are from a third party not solicited by the Deer Ridge Community Association.

Due to COVID restrictions, Deer Ridge Community Association is unable to host a potentially large meeting indoors to discuss. Would you be interested in attending a virtual Webinar session online to discuss prior to the BCMB deadline? The business owner would be available to respond to questions/concerns. Please email: deerridgeca@gmail.com if you are interested.

We strongly recommend you email your concerns/comments/support to the Beverage Container Management Board (BCMB) as per their announcement:

Pursuant to policies established by the BCMB, any person who is directly affected by a proposed relocation may submit written concerns regarding the application to: info@bcmb.ab.ca

Written concerns must be submitted by the deadline specified in the Application details listed below. Submissions should be detailed and must include the reasoning behind their support or objection of the proposed relocation. Please quote the Application Number, identified below, in the subject line of your email.

Please make sure you reference Application Number: BC-20-028.  BCMB requests submission be received by “Thursday, June 12”.  (Note: There is an error in announcement,the 12th is a Friday.)