Archive for the ‘Summerhill (Landmark) Homes’ Category

Update (and Powerlines!) - November 2009

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

 

Just some quick info:

  • No news from Summerhill about the vibration survey
  • No reply from CN Rail about some of the track changes people have mentioned might be coming (see previous posts)
  • Train seemed super busy the last few weeks, noticed a lot more shaking after a considerable period of ‘quiet’. Trains seemed to carrying heavier/taller roads (i.e., riding well above the fence height)
  • As mentioned previously we have stopped phoning to complain… don’t know if that is or isn’t having any impact
  • The trails through the subdivision are mostly finished, our family has been making extensive use of them… hope to see more families out and about next spring/summer

Powerlines

As many of you know (and have probably received the flyers for), there is a possiblity that large-scale powerlines will be built relatively near the Tamarack subdivision. I urge you to come out to the meeting on November 24/09 to voice your concerns — there is a chance that they might be convinced to bury the lines instead.

Details can be found at www.reta.ca

Posted in Powerlines, Subdivision, Summerhill (Landmark) Homes, Trains | No Comments »

Updates - July 2009

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Wikipedia

The wikipedia entry over at Tamarack keeps on getting the train reference removed thanks to someone named Boss1696. Bet s/he works for one of the builders or Dundee. I’m getting a little bored of adding it back in, so if someone else wants to keep an eye on that page, that would be great.

CN Rail and the Hypothetical Control Arm

Over a month and CN rail still has not returned my query about whether a crossing arm (as some builders are asserting) is going to be built or not. This is one of the biggest problems with make enquiries of CN — they are very slow to respond. I’ll try another contact e-mail address, I guess.

Summerhill and the Engineers

Still waiting on a quote from the engineering group (to do a vibration study). Will let everyone know when that comes in.

Posted in Summerhill (Landmark) Homes, Trains | 12 Comments »

Developers are still ‘bending’ the truth

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009

So the latest I’m hearing from people who have e-mailed is that sales people for Summerhill, Lincolnberg, Avi, et cetera are still misleading potential buyers.

They are telling them that disturbance from the train is minimal. They have also mentioned that the developer Dundee has a deal with CN Rail where the whistling might stop because they’ve made a deal to subsidize a new control arm. I hope that’s true but I’m doubtful. I’ll do some doublechecking. If anyone actually contacts CN and finds out if this is true let me know.

Posted in Subdivision, Summerhill (Landmark) Homes, Trains | 6 Comments »

Tamarack - Summerhill update

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

(Back to main page)

We have received a reply from Michael Haupt the General Manager for Summerhill Homes, in regards to our being disatisfied with how the sale process went for our home in the Tamarack subdivision of Edmonton, Alberta, and how difficult it had been to gather information to make a more informed decision.

This is a high-level summary of his response:

  • A ground vibration study was performed for Dundee (the area developer) on May 23 to June 2 2003 and established that “the ground-bourne vibration level at the building location is expected to fall well below the Reiher and Meister limit of ‘barely noticeable to persons’…
  • On page 2 it is shown that Dundee decided to ignore the CN recommendation for maximum ground vibration and build closer to the tracks than they needed to. “…the ground vibration level at the 45m setback will be approximately 0.16mm/sec slightly exceeding the CN criteria of 0.14 mm/sec.
  • Certain statements in the study such as  on page 3 where it says “As can be seen from Figure 3, the anticipated vibration level at the 45m setback location will be still substantially lower than that caused by bus traffic in front of the house” contradict with our actual experience. We suffer significantly more disturbance than when we lived in a home on a bus route.

Even more concerning is that the construction that is occurring across the alley from us (new homes being dug and built) is causing less vibration and noise than the train.

You can download/read the full cn-rail-line-assessment-tamarack here.

However Mr. Haupt did offer a propsoal. Summerhill Homes is willing to form a committe to review the vibration noise and have another vibration survey performed to see if there have been any changes in rail operation (the last survey was 6 years ago)  and if they are affecting homes.

Summerhill and interested homeowners would share the workload and cost. If you are interested in participating in this please e-mail Brent at knowedge@hotmail.com

That said, even if there are problems found, we would still need to try and work with CN Rail to do something about changing the way the rail line works and based on my discussions with Transport Canada and CN, this is very unlikely. This is one of their most important rail lines.

We haven’t decided exactly what we are going to do. All parties, including the homeowners, share some of the blame but I can’t help but feel that the City of Edmonton and Dundee are the biggest culprits here. There was no need with such a large land mass available to build right beside the tracks.

Anways, if you are interested in working with Summerhill to do another vibration study please let me know.

The second attachment a Lot plan

Mr. Haupt also included a tamarack-area-map.

The date on the second PDF is interesting. September 2007. I suspect many homeowners had already started the construction process. (Sorry for this document being upside down, that’s how it arrived to us).

Additionally, unless I’m missing it, I can’t find a scale on this map to determine how far away the houses are from the line. This just goes to show how difficult it was to find any real information when we were making our initial decision to build our home in Tamarack. The maps we received during our consideration period are even less detailed than this one.

Posted in City of Edmonton, Subdivision, Summerhill (Landmark) Homes, Trains | 1 Comment »

Personal Summary

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

This is a summary of our own experiences with building a home with Summerhill in the Tamarack subdivision. I posted this to the Connect2Edmonton forum this morning:

Tamarack is a new subdivision that is attracting lots of interest but the developer (Dundee) and various builders are not being entirely fair with their customers. As someone who has been burned by moving into this subdivision I think more people should know about what’s happening.

Basically when the subdivision was open for sale there was no method to actually enter the construction site. None of the developer maps showed that there was a train line in the area! A noisy train that runs very frequently, especially at night.

Those of us who initially purchased lots based on the sitemaps and the assurances of the sales agents were pretty surprised when once the subdivision opened we found out how close the train was to our homes (it basically runs through some people’s backyard!).

So we confronted the builder (Summerhill Homes) but their sales agent told us the line would be discontinued. By the time we found out the truth from CN Rail that the line would not be discontinued, Summerhill had our sizable deposit already.

Posted in Summerhill (Landmark) Homes | No Comments »

Email Exchange with CN Rail

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

This is an e-mail chain between me and CN Rail when I started investigating why the train line was not being discontinued.

 

From: APRIL.LEITCH@cn.ca [mailto:APRIL.LEITCH@cn.ca]
Sent: Friday, July 04, 2008 10:54 AM
To: Knowles, Brent
Subject: Fw: Fw:RE: Edmonton: Railway question

Mr. Knowles, CN did have contact with the developer.  The line is not being discontinued and CN did not advise anyone it was to be discontinued.

April Leitch
CN Public Affairs

—————————-
From: brent

Sent: Monday, June 30, 2008 1:20:22 PM
To: CONTACT@CN.CA
CC:
Subject: RE: Edmonton: Railway question

Louise,
 
I have never received a reply to my initial e-mail but I have since discovered that it is CN that owns and operates the line.
 
Some facts

  • The train can be quite loud (but usually is not). Some times you can see that the cars are piled higher than the “noise barrier fence”. These are usually the noisy trains.
  • Worse than the noise is the shaking. The house actually physically shakes with some trains (but not all). Don’t know why some do this and others don’t.
  • The house (all the houses) were not built with any “allowances for shaking”… they all do shake when particular fast/heavy trains come through the area. I’ve had all the engineering plans reviewed and this was never accomodated in the builds (nor was there any mention of any allowance to dampen the noise). I’m worried long-term about the well being of the house given that there’s no architectural notes regarding this.

The Builder was very specific that the train line was being discontinued. I have since discovered that there is no plan to discontinue the train (please correct me if am wrong).
 
I’m now trying to determine if there were at least discussions about this at some point or if the Builder was misleading us when we purchased our house.
 
Thanks for whatever information you can provide to me,
 
Brent Knowles
 

From: CONTACT@CN.CA [mailto:CONTACT@CN.CA]
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 3:20 PM
To: Knowles, Brent
Subject: Re:Edmonton: Railway question

Hello Brent,
 
Your email has been forwarded to the appropriate contact person for the area.
 
Thank you and have a safe day,
Louise
 
CN Public Inquiries

 

—————————-
From: brent
Sent: Monday, May 26, 2008 3:57:54 PM
To: contact@cn.ca
CC:
Subject: Edmonton: Railway question

Hello,
 
I am trying to determine the operator of the rail-line that runs near whitemud and 17th street (see attached map) in the city of Edmonton.
 
The builder and developer of the Tamarack subdivision failed to mention that such a railway existed before we built a house with them and then when we later found out about the track they told us it was being discontinued. I’m trying to verify if it is indeed going to be discontinued… but I don’t know who actually runs it.
 
Thank you very much for your time.
 
 
Sincerely,
 
 
- Brent Knowles

Posted in Summerhill (Landmark) Homes, Trains | No Comments »