My apologies to loyal readers for seemingly obsessing over a little patch of land on the Seine River that none of you have ever visited. The good news is, in the next few years you will be able to visit the small forest while walking on a public pathway. It will certainly be worth visiting.
Analysis of Qualico’s strangely redacted lot plan for the old Smith Farm homestead gives us some tantalizing clues. The outlines of the back yards for the new pie-shaped lots are clearly visible. Thanks to the world’s worst artist (me) you can see the rough outlines of six ¼ acre residential lots. You can also see theapproximately 1 acre right-of-way needed for the new public street. At a generous $200K per acre, the 2 ½ acres of raw land might be worth approximately $500,000 in the real estate market after the Precinct K DASZ is approved later this month.
The six pie-shaped lots may eventually be worth from $250k to $300k each. That would put the gross sales value from of the new lots between $1.5M to $1.8M.
If the City and/or Save Our Seine decided that they wanted the subject land for the new linear Seine River park, now is definitely the best time for them to make an offer, not later. In 2004 Ladco demanded $65k an acre for land in the Bois-des-esprits that it had just had rezoned for new condos. Raw land was worth between $10k to $20k an acre at the time. (The city paid $15k an acre for land in the Bois-des-esprits floodplain in 2004. Amazingly, that is the same price that they pay for river bottom lands in 2026.)
I have used a turquoise line to show a possible Active Transportation trail outline from north to south. It also has spurs towards the east and to a viewing/sitting area at the site of the now demolished Smith Farm bridge. This would make a wonderful future AT bridge site on the Seine River.
The proposed trail makes use of a historic farm road that bisects the property. While a culvert may be necessary, this is probably the best high ground route through the property. Many similar horse trails were used to build the trail system in the Bois-des-esprits.
While Qualico Development are decidedly generous in deeding some of their forested land north of the coulee to the City for new parkland, they are less generous in their riverbank land dedication to the south. This is understandable. Considering the length of roadway that they have to construct and pay for, they have relatively few lots to sell. This fact is what makes me consider the idea of the City purchasing the land from the developer. Having said that, these are highly-desirable executive lots, with the potential to purchase even more vacant land from the two private landowners to the south. Buying the Smith Farm homestead from Qualico is a long shot at best.