Servicing Agreement Signed with CoE, Building Permit Review Set to Proceed

It's not easy to get a $1.5 million religous assembly building constructed in a mature, established neighbourhood... especially when we are trying to do all the project coordination with volunteers. Still, we are making steady progress.

Another condition on our development permit was to sign a Servicing Agreement with the City of Edmonton for the construction of a commercial access to our planned mosque site, the removal of 2 avenue trees, and the aligning of the catch basin with 155 Street.

Our Treasurer, and Mosque Project Coordinator Sinem Senol started the Servicing Agreement application in early April, a servicing request was created by CoE on April 18th, and as of May 29 the signed agreement has been in place.

This means that we have officially met all the conditions outlined in our development permit application. Our Building Permit application has now been released for review. It's the busiest time of the year for CoE and we anticipate many meetings and revisions in the process but we are slowly getting there.

Building Permit Application Submitted for the TCS Mosque

After almost two years of very hard work, TCS volunteer project consultant Suat Demirer and President Ahmet Topal submitted the building permit application for the TCS Mosque on May 10, 2019.

It wasn't a cheap endeavor, either. For an estimated project budget of $1.5 million, our permit fee was a little over $20K.

This permit application fee was paid as an expense previously authorized by the TCS Board of Directors, but we an definitely use your donations to help us make this project come true.

Please visit the How Can You Help? page on our website and consider making a donation for our project.

Cross-Lot Access Easement Agreement Signed with EPSB and CoE

After months of negotiations with the City of Edmonton and the Edmonton Public School Board, TCS President Ahmet Topal and our Secretary Musa Ersoy signed the Cross-Lot Access Easement Agreement on March 20th per the authority granted to them through the TCS Bylaws.

The Agreement was signed and approved by the CoE and EPSB on April 8th. We have therefore cleared the most important condition on our development permit, and secured approximately 75 square meters of land to access the parking lot of our planned mosque.

The contract negotiations were primarily coordinated by our Treasures Sinem Senol. Naturally, Turkish Canadian Society Board of Directors have saught the advice of its legal counsel throughout the process, who reviewed and made recommendations about the agreement.

The contract was secured with no cost to TCS, just a minimal amount of lien was agreed upon between the parties to ensure that TCS undertakes any maintenance or repairs to the piece of land in a timely fashion.

Project Design Meetings Held Behind the Stage as we get close to the Building Permit Application

Just because we haven't posted an update for a while doesn't mean our TCS Mosque Project isn't going full speed ahead.

Our volunteer project designer Suat Demirer has been meeting with our project engineers and consultants behind the scenes for the past few months to finalize the electrical, mechanical, structural and architectural drawings required for the building permit application.

It's not an easy process. The results of the soil test and geotechnical analysis resulted in some minor changes to the elevation of the building.

 As a result, project drawings need to be updated. Mr. Demirer has spent at least a few thousand hours making all these updates since the inception of the project. Our architectural firm, Camred Architects has been graciously hosting all the engineering meetings.

Whenever he can, our President Ahmet Topal has been attending these project meetings to get updates on where we are standing with the project, so that he can share these developments with the very excited and anxious Turkish community.

We thank all our volunteer engineers and designers for their dedication and support for our project.

Contract Negotiations Under Way with EPSB and CoE for the Easement Agreement

One of the conditions of the Development Permit we received from the City of Edmonton was to sign an Easement Agreement with the Edmonton Public School Board so that TCS can use 75 squaremetres of EPSB property in perpetuity to access the parking lot of our proposed Mosque Project.

Our Treasurer and External Relations Coordinator Sim Senol has been leading these negotiations for TCS. Thanks to CoE lawyers who helped us draft the agreement we are getting close to an agreement.

TCS Board has agreed to hire a lawyer recently to deal with a variety of legal matters. We will have our lawyer review the agreement before it's signed by TCS Executives.

TCS Board Presented Mosque Project to Mr. Yakup Sekmen, Religious Affairs Attache for the Turkish Republic

Exactly two years after we presented the initial conceptual designs of our dream project to then Religious Affairs Attache Mr. Mahmut Demir, we had the privilege and honour to host the newly appointed Religious Affairs Attache of the Turkish Republic at the Turkish Canadian Society on November 25, 2019.


Mr. Yakup Sekmen came to Edmonton to meet with the Turkish Canadian community in the city and participate in an event organized to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammed (s.a.v.).

During his visit, Turkish Canadian Society President Ahmet Topal, and Board Members Sinem Senol, Yusuf Akca, Mustafa Kamil Demir, Musa Ersoy and Efe Aksoy gave him an update about our mosque project.

Drilling for Soil Tests Completed for the TCS Mosque

On September 4, Project Consultant Suat Demirer, Diyanet Imam Mustafa Kuyuk, and TCS Treasurer Sim Senol met with the drilling team from Alpha Adroit at our planned consruction site.

Soil samples were taken from the site and sent for testing. Once we receive the results, our volunteer Professional Engineer will write the required geotechnical report which will then be used for developing the structural and architectural plans for our project.

As a non-profit society we don't have the luxury of spending thousands of dollars for the project before the building permit is approved. It slows down our progress a little but we are surely getting closer to the building permit application.