1-Acre Apple Orchard Planned for Calgary Condo
By Penny on Jul 23, 2014
It will be easy to keep the doctor away at this new condo in Calgary! Toronto-based Lamb Developments is including a 230 foot apple orchard in their new two-building condo development, aptly named “The Orchard.”
With a social responsibility to the environment, Brad Lamb believes an apple orchard is the ideal outdoor amenity to appeal to both residents and locals. “I like slim towers, we didn’t need all of the land to build this. I thought, we can put an amazing park in between these,” said Lamb about the initial phases of the idea. “I think there needs to be more green spaces in the city and it’s unlikely that the city will do that because most of the land is already acquired. So it’s up to developers.”
Via Lamb Developments
Though much of his work is in Toronto, Lamb says that chances of seeing a development like this one here is less likely because of the high cost of land. Calgary’s affordable land makes it the ideal urban landscape for innovative planning and development, but there are also provincial incentives that contribute to creative designs. According to Lamb, improving public infrastructure through planning and development satisfies Calgary’s development charge fees and exempts developers from having to just write a cheque for the amount owed. The program ‘local improvement debentures,’ is not exclusive to Calgary, but is not something we have in Toronto. Its aim is to encourage developers to create public spaces that will maximize residential use while essentially saving the developer money, which in turn, saves homebuyers money. In the past, Lamb Developments has given back to the communities in which they’ve built by creating beautiful parks; “This time, I wanted to do something green, the idea behind it is that it’s economically a good idea for us and for the city. It’s something that will scrub the air and be a nice feature for people in the area,” explained Lamb.
Of course, dealing with Canada’s seasonal changes limits the types of fruit that can be grown in most regions, but apples are capable of thriving, and that’s why Lamb and O2 Landscape Architecture selected this tasty fruit. Having worked with O2 on other Calgary projects, Lamb employed the company’s expertise in design and landscape ingenuity to research and develop just the right kind of fruit. Specifically selected are Parkland and September Ruby because of their resilient nature, as well as their low maintenance cost. Concerns over the impact the orchard could have on condo fees, Lamb assured Newinhomes.com that the 66-tree orchard costs less than having an outdoor pool (which the condo also has)!
Brad J. Lamb
“It's ridiculous that we bring in fruit from far away places that we can grow. If this fruit bearing experiment works, we can grow 40,000 apples a year,” says Lamb, adding that developers should be encouraged to create similar developments in Mississauga, Etobicoke, North York and even Montreal where land is more affordable. “I think we need to be more experimental. We wouldn't have to buy pears at Loblaws anymore. We need to think outside of the box, nobody has done this anywhere and it makes the Earth better.”
With environmental concerns weighing on our consciences more and more, do you think we’ll start to see more developments like this popping up in suburban sectors of the GTA?
