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Vibrations caused by construction vehicles at a former Kanata golf course are damaging nearby homes, some Kanata North residents say.
Large vehicles began operating on the grounds of the Kanata Golf and Country Club earlier this year, as developers prepare to turn the site into a new subdivision with nearly 1,500 homes.
Since then, some people living nearby say that activity has caused earthquake-like tremors.
“I’m really worried about the structure of my house,” said Dett Kruse, who lives on Shaughnessy Crescent.
Speaking at a rally on Sunday, Kruse said contractors who were working on the second floor of his home felt the whole house shaking.
One of them, Kruse said, was “swinging back and forth for about 30 seconds,” while another “said she almost lost her balance on the ladder.”
Those vibrations may have also caused damage to the structural integrity of his house, he added.
“I looked around the house,” Kruse said. “I think I have new cracks.”
His neighbour, Doug Slone, said he’s felt the tremors in his home too.
“I was sitting there in my living room and all of a sudden the cupboard started shaking, the floor started shaking,” he said.
Slone said he inspected his house and found fissures in the foundation.
“I found cracks in the parging that have never been there before.”
CBC News reached out to Minto Developments for a response Sunday, but they did not respond before publication.
Barbara Ramsay is the chair of the Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)Residents protest Sunday
Kruse, Slone and more than 150 other Kanata North residents gathered outside the golf course Sunday to protest any further development.
It’s all part of a longstanding fight residents and the city are having with developers.
“It’s about appropriate development as safe development,” said Barbara Ramsay, chair of the Kanata Greenspace Protection Coalition. “And that’s what we’ve been fighting for, and we will continue to fight.”
Many residents feel they don’t have any choice but to come out and demonstrate, she said.
“The homes are shaking. And so staying at home alone in fear is not the way to fight something like this,” she said.
Until recently, the golf course was the centre of a long-running legal dispute between the city and the property owner ClubLink over their development plan.
Golfers enjoy the brisk fall weather at the Kanata Golf and Country Club last year, before it closed down. (Campbell MacDiarmid/CBC)
The city sought to block the development and won a court challenge in 2021, only to see the Ontario Superior Court reverse that decision in favour of ClubLink.
In September, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the City of Ottawa against property owner ClubLink.
Opponents of the development cite a 1981 legal agreement requiring the property owner to protect open space.
While ClubLink came out on top in the legal battles, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has stated the city will not grant any of the easements — a legal right that lets one party use another’s land for a particular purpose — that the housing development might need.