The City of Yellowknife says the Tin Can Hill green space is not earmarked for any immediate development as council prepares to end a deal reserving the land for a university campus.
City staff have suggested cancelling the agreement because discussions “regarding Tin Can Hill as a Yellowknife polytechnic university campus have declined while the City of Yellowknife’s need for developable land for future needs has become more acute.”
While that language – found in a memo to councillors last week, alongside similar phrasing in a letter sent to Aurora College – implied Tin Can Hill was “developable land,” Yellowknife’s mayor and city manager said on Monday there is no plan to develop any part of the area.
At a Monday meeting, councillor Tom McLennan asked: “Given the language in the memo and the letter, does the city have any plans to develop Tin Can Hill in the immediate future?”
“No, we do not,” city manager Stephen Van Dine replied.
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“We have absolutely no proposals,” Mayor Rebecca Alty added later in the discussion.
McLennan said he had wanted to make clear to concerned residents – some of whom attended the meeting – that the city “in no way is rezoning or prepping the land for development at this time.”
Council expressed broad support for the idea of terminating the deal, which was signed in 2022 and held back part of Tin Can Hill for a proposed campus once Aurora College transforms into a polytechnic university.
The college itself told Cabin Radio last week it has no objection to the agreement ending.
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Van Dine said the city still wants to work with Aurora College on a future campus location and is trying to persuade the institution to look downtown for a solution.
While Tin Can Hill isn’t the subject of “any specific proposal right now,” he added, “it’s important for residents to know there are demands that are come to the city periodically, and the availability of land question is something that comes up first and foremost in any discussion about the potential opportunities for Yellowknife to grow and expand.”
Multiple councillors on Monday said ending the existing agreement was one thing, but any prospect of development at Tin Can Hill would be an entirely different discussion.
“I don’t think it’s a shock to anybody that I am not a proponent of developing Tin Can Hill, but that’s a debate for another day,” said councillor Ben Hendriksen.
“The rationale for removing this MOU is we’re locking it up for the GNWT right now for Aurora College. They clearly haven’t been that interested in doing anything with it, [and] keeping those two things very separate is very important.”
A formal vote to terminate the agreement will take place at a council meeting on the evening of March 10.
