When Tracy D’Amour glimpses the heavy equipment plowing the way for a ring road interchange just outside her backyard, she says it’s a reminder of how intolerable it’s made living there.

And she’s convinced that’s how any prospective home buyer would now view her Valley Ridge home that backs onto 16 Ave. N.W. and a massive construction zone that’ll produce an off-ramp just metres from her back fence.

D’Amour and some of her neighbours insist the work on the north end of the west Calgary ring road and its final product is bulldozing their property values and say the province should buy them out at pre-ring road market value or provide some kind of compensation.

“The close proximity of the project to our homes in Valley Ridge is no different than if our home had been broken into and vandalized. I feel violated every day,” said D’Amour, who’s lived on Valley Brook Circle N.W. for 19 years.

“Alberta Transportation should have expropriated (nearby homes). … Who is going to buy our homes now? No one.”

She said one road under construction at the site will be a mere 10 metres from her backyard while an elevated westbound lane is expected to be 30 metres away and at a height level to her second-floor bedroom.

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