Griesbach residents have been waiting for a grocery store since 2013. It's not happening

The southeast corner of Edmonton's Griesbach neighbourhood has long been a sore spot.

After sitting vacant for years, construction is underway on new mid-rise apartments at 97th Street and 137th Avenue, but the site won't become the easily accessible grocery store local residents were expecting.

Sobeys bought the land in 2013 but never built on it, and more than a decade later, a restrictive covenant is still there. Restrictive covenants are binding legal agreements that limit what property owners can do, and they're attached to land titles, so they typically carry on even if the property is sold.

In this case, Griesbach residents say the restrictive covenant bars grocers, as well as similar businesses like bakeries and butcher shops.

Griesbach Community League president Carl Knowler said he's glad the lot will no longer be empty. Deveraux Developments is putting apartment buildings in the spot originally planned for a grocery store, and commercial developer Forum is leasing out businesses in the surrounding plaza.

But the types of shops and businesses directly connected to the neighbourhood are still being constrained — the commercial properties around the former grocery store site are also limited by the same restrictive covenants.

"Having more residents in that area is going to help the businesses. So it's time to move on and say, at least it's going to be developed," Knowler said.

"But residents — it's still in their minds. They're still upset about the whole thing."

When City of Edmonton planning officials recommended allowing rezoning for residential development on the site, they noted their hands were tied, too.

"In this case, the purpose of the restrictive covenant is to protect Sobeys interest in the market and avoid competition from other grocery store chains," a 2022 report reads.

"The City does not have the ability to force the original owner of the site (nor the new owner) to have the restrictive covenant removed."

Competition Bureau investigation underway

Canada's Competition Bureau launched investigations earlier this year into Loblaw Cos. Ltd. and Empire Company Ltd., the parent companies of grocery chains Loblaws and Sobeys. The agency is examining whether the use of property controls, including restrictive covenants, is limiting retail grocery competition.

Griesbach residents banded together in 2019 to lodge complaints with the Competition Bureau over the impact of the restrictive covenant in their neighbourhood.

Knowler and Brad Tilley, who was community league president during that period, said that the Competition Bureau ultimately told them the situation didn't meet all the criteria that would constitute a violation of the Competition Act, mainly because there are still other nearby grocery stores they can access.

Tilley said that's true: a T&T Supermarket and a Safeway — which is owned by the Sobeys parent company after a 2013 acquisition — are both just east of Griesbach.

But getting there means crossing seven or eight lanes of traffic at a major intersection. Tilley said that's not what residents were expecting when they bought into a neighbourhood proposed as a pedestrian-friendly "urban village."

A spokesperson for the Competition Bureau told CBC News in a statement that the agency can't provide information about the 2019 complaints because the law requires confidentiality in their work.

The agency announced last month that the current investigation is advancing, with the Federal Court granting orders that require the companies to produce relevant records.

Sobeys parent Empire claims the commissioner was wrong to start the inquiry because it doesn't have a "dominant" market position.

In a separate application in Federal Court, the company denies that property controls are anti-competitive and says they "are not unique to the grocery sector, but have been widely used for decades in a range of retail and other sectors across the country."

There's currently no conclusion of wrongdoing. The Competition Bureau spokesperson said the investigations are focusing on the use of property controls in Halifax, "but are also seeking to determine the nature and extent of property controls in Canada more generally."

While Griesbach residents are moving forward now, Knowler said the community tried multiple avenues to raise concerns, but they still feel handcuffed by the restrictive covenant.

"The government should be able to step in and be able to do something in those unique circumstances, like what happened to us."