YYCALGARY
New Member
It is likely the city will require a funds be set aside from the developer as part of conditions set in the development agreement before the DP is released.
- Thread starter MichaelS
- Start date
MichaelS
Senior Member
Does this mean the scope of the Main Streets project will increase, covering more of the area to the east since they no longer need to do this frontage? Or, will there be a budget reduction?
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
A budget reduction I'm sure: "On time and under budget", (never mentioning they didn't do half a block).
Utility work will still be done, it will just be a asphalt sidewalk, I don't know how much the finishings cost but it has to be a smaller portion of the budget than the utility work, no?
CBBarnett
Senior Member
That's a good question, but I assume this will help defer some of the cost escalation that hits every capital project that was budgeted pre/during COVID era and is being built today.
For such a critical block in the whole project, it's a huge risk to do "business as usual" sidewalk approach for this section of the main street. Development can get delayed, economics will change and stuff happens - worst case scenario Marda Loop will end up with it's own 17th Avenue sidewalk debacle, where the project has been "over" for nearly a decade and they are finally paving the sidewalks now.
As I have ranted before, the city's approach to sidewalks is backwards. As the asset owner with an objective, we should be building the nice-quality public realm because that's the entire point. If a development comes in and needs to disrupt it a few years from now, they can - but they can also pay to fix it. They really shouldn't be connected as closely as some sort of negotiated outcome - they are two projects unrelated to each other.
It would be one thing if the site was already approved and construction was about to begin - that makes sense to work closely together to align timing and save some money. But this is still a few years away and hasn't even been through the council approval. We shouldn't change the scope of the public project to satisfy a yet-to-be-approved private one.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Looks decent, seems a bit tall for the area though.
adamyyc
Active Member
Totally agree! My biggest concern is that what happened on 17th is going to happen to the most prominent corner in the neighbourhood.
The City is already relying on developers to carry the load east of 18th Street, because that section doesn’t meet the “commercial” requirements for Main Streets investment.
So instead of future phases, we’ll get piecmealed improvments along the frontages of lots that get redeveloped over time. I thought this was a lousy explanation from the City given the 37th Main Streets project.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
As far as I know it is just funding and phasing, nothing to do with it not being "commercial" enough?
CBBarnett
Senior Member
All of this is a symptom of the main issue - sidewalks and pathways are still not considered priorities, particularly from a transportation perspective. I have spent a lot of years on this site complaining about this and refining my thesis about this:
Calgary treats sidewalks and pathways in this weird grey area somewhere between transportation and development. Strangely, funding for sidewalk upgrades is super complex and opaque, with multiple programs and projects all kind of doing similar things. Funding gets cobbled together from this wide variety of programs and sources, each with their own goals and objectives. Importantly, these different funding sources don't always have the same goals or have the same triggers to create an actual project.
Take the main street program, for example. The project area in Marda Loop seems to be in areas that had broad city-led up-zoning occur - essentially the goal appears to be to try to link public investment with planned growth.
The nuance here is the investment trigger seems to be investment for planned growth, not actual growth. Marda Loop has had half of 33/34th upzoned (the western BIA side), while the eastern side didn't get upzoned thanks to community opposition. As investment is aligned to the planned growth, the phasing focuses on the western side, despite actual growth occurring everywhere, and skyrocketing actual user demand (i.e. the number of pedestrians and cyclists actually needing the infrastructure) is visible everywhere nearby thanks to decades of infill.
Another common approach that triggers sidewalk and pathway upgrades isn't demand or zoning or growth at all - it's repaving. Want a bike lane and some curb cuts? Little actually can be done to make it happen unless the road happens to be a few years away from repaving and repainting (even then it's an uphill battle). Again, actual need or demand for safe sidewalks and cycling is not the trigger for investment, the amount of paint worn off by cars is the trigger for investment.
All this contrast starkly with arterial corridor planning for driving. The objective (move lots of cars fast) is always known and always the same, and the trigger is always known (there's more cars and congestion here than ideal, to the point it should probably be upgraded). Any arterial exceeds thresholds gets looked at and eventually added to a single list and prioritized for upgrades. Money (hundreds of millions of dollars each year) is then prioritized periodically to a specific corridor to do those upgrades.
So back to this development and what this all means:
- Because we don't take sidewalks seriously, we leave the implementation of them up to random developments like this one instead of a more systematic approach like major roads.
- This means sidewalks are negotiated and ad-hoc, both in timing and quality, making a complete and consistent network practically impossible to build.
- This ad-hoc approach even impacts existing programs, where sidewalk segments can be de-scoped as part of that negotiation to save a few bucks (in theory) for a development to pay for them instead in 5 to 10 years (assuming the development actually happens).
- If the city's approach sidewalk planning was more similar to arterial road planning, the construction would have been done decades ago, with wide consistent sidewalks already existing the entire length of the corridor. This development would just simply have to tie in to them and not block/disrupt operation of the sidewalk with construction.
- If we planned Crowchild the way we plan our sidewalks, it would randomly be changing between 1 and 4 lanes, have random paint and debris all over, inconsistent everything and have construction hoarding blocking 2 lanes indefinitely.
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adamyyc
Active Member
I asked about phasing during a public session and didn’t get warm, fuzzy feelings that the City will ever touch the east half of 33/34.
Below is from the FAQs on the project website. It doesn’t outright say it’ll never happen, but reading between the lines, it seems unlikely that the east half will see funding any time soon.
Why are some portions of the community of different land use designation than others? Which are eligible for the Main Streets program?
The west part of the community underwent a land use change in 2019 making it eligible for the Main Streets program. To be eligible, an area’s land use must meet density and diversity criteria. This is because Main Streets are vibrant by design – they allow for both retail and residential use, creating a vibrant, connected community.While the eastern portion (34 Avenue from 18 to 14 Streets S.W. and 33 Avenue from 19 to 14 Streets S.W.) is not technically eligible for the Main Streets program because of its land use designation, our team has designed one holistic concept for the community to ensure there’s consistent character and quality throughout.
Complete drawings for the east portion of the community will be available for developers who may be interested in Marda Loop, which means they’ll support the program as they build out their projects ensuring the consistent neighbourhood look and feel we envision.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Great parsing, I see what you're saying. There is a new area plan coming and perhaps up-zoning the corridor makes it eligible?
adamyyc
Active Member
Yeah, maybe the area will get up zoned with the West Elbow Local Area Plan.
The reality is that a significant portion of 33rd has already been up zoned through individual applications (mostly by Sarina). I just think it’d be short-sighted for the City not to finish the job and carry a consistent corridor through to 14 St via Main Streets.
StratosCityDweller
New Member
Tying the main streets investment in Marda Loop to the upzoning "in advance", was a mistake, and unnecessary. As also noted, there is no evidence that city-led upzoning is an advantage in leading to development. Since it was done, there have been more and bigger projects pursued and completed along the rest of 33rd than in the city-upzoned area: Harrison, Hudson, Sarina 1600, proposed Sarina 1500. Regarding the completion of 33/34, I think 34th should have priority due to the multi-use path which dead-ends around 18th Street with current funding.