Rocky View County rejects Islamic centre application

A mosque and community centre proposed for the rural community of Bearspaw will not go ahead.

Rocky View County has rejected a proposal for a 22,000 square feet facility with a parking lot for 431 vehicles.

The nine-member council determined the plan does not comply with the current land use for the area, which is northwest of Calgary.

• MORE CALGARY NEWS|Truck involved in Humboldt Broncos crash belongs to Calgary company
• MORE CALGARY NEWS|Trans Mountain pipeline rally draws hundreds to McDougall Centre in Calgary

But Ghazanfar Zafar, with the Muslim Council of Calgary, says he believes his faith was at least part of the reason the project received so much opposition, pointing out dozens of Bearspaw residents sent emails against the project.

"If we can have a church lots of churches actually and the Buddhist temple, Butterfield Acres, so many other properties and entities with all sorts of designations, I don't see why we cant have an Islamic centre there," he said.

Faith and religion are mentioned in emails and letters from area residents included in a package to council.

"There is nothing "community" about this plan," reads one. "It only represents the self-serving interests of a religious group and has no place in an area zoned R1 Country Residential."

Zafar says the Islamic centre would have benefited the community at large by providing spaces for meetings and special events, but residents argue there are already enough meeting spaces in Bearspaw.

Kyle Patrician would be one ofthe centre's neighbours. He spoke against it but says for him it's not about faith or race.

"We don't have the road structure to support anything, whether it's a Catholic church, a school, a mall, a shopping centre, doesn't matter who it was," he said.