[Mountain Man]

Owner of that site tore down like 11 houses 5 or 6 years ago and tried to turn it into parking (which the city rejected) so it's just sat empty. The City was using it as a staging area for all the utility work on 17th, and that's supposed to continue this year I believe, so likely more staging in the next year or two.

 

[CBBarnett]

Still crazy to me that Crescent Road is for mansions, that should have been a commercial strip. How awesome would a patio there be?!

Great idea, but we don't even need the redevelopment. Now that's worth closing the road for, have a seasonal beer garden/park extension built between Crescent Heights Park and the edge of the bluff. Do it right and raise up the roadway so it's quality. Better yet divert the pathway behind a beer garden and have it right on the bluff.

Ottawa is not known to be a particularly interesting or innovative city, but one thing they nailed is the beer garden in the public park idea, at least in a North American context. They have them all over the place, city centre and further out. They are simple and seasonal, but that's kind of the point. Something like this in Major's Hill Park would be a slam dunk in Crescent Heights:

Here's another Ottawa example in a far more suburban context. Kind of like Angel's in Edworthy Park, but way more casual with sprawling, temporary patios and pathway oriented:

In order for this to happen, Calgary would need to break (at least) 4 very tough mental barriers:

1. It's okay for uses to mix such as parks/pathways/houses/seasonal beer gardens
2. All perceived nuisances from mixing uses can be as handled via operational design and enforcement rather than blanket bans on activities (e.g. to avoid noise at night, no outdoor speakers and patio closes at 10pm v. to avoid noise at night, no patios are allowed ever, anywhere within walking distance)
3. Residents of Crescent Heights (or any neighbourhood) have no unique right to the publicly owned space in their neighbourhood including the park and street
4. Streets can be things other than for cars all year round and the world won't end

That's a lot to push through.

Normally I would say Crescents Heights probably isn't the place to start with my kind of "radical" Ottawa-style park reform, but the more I think about it it might be a great opportunity. After all, the arguably "more appropriate" places (e.g. a main street, Bow River Pathway etc.) can't seem to overcome these barriers either, likely because they have far more powerful resistors to reform via parks and transportation departments, existing festivals, stronger competing demands etc.

Crescent Heights has proven demand and there's a half block of Crescent Road that's over 100m from any house. Take all that suspicious loitering the community is concerned with, and put it to good work as patrons of a beer garden. Plus a new profit centre for the parks department

 

[Cyric]

Anyone know what the deal is with this lot on 17th ave? Seems insane to me that this is just sitting there unused for so long. The lot must be worth a fortune

Several years ago there was this proposal: https://calgary.skyrisecities.com/f...-m-26s-pba-land-development-gibbs-gage.24993/ Never went anywhere, it does still show up on the PBA Developments page though.

 

[UrbanWarrior]

It's an interesting one...maybe a case of right-thing for wrong-reasons. I used to live nearby and ride/run it all the time. While there were often people in cars who aren't really 'my kind of people' (can't quite find the right phrasing...I don't mean it in a passive-aggressive boomer kinda way), it was pretty rare that they were detrimental to my experience.

I can imagine it's a different case on summer nights, so restricting vehicle/parking access by time seems like the most sensible compromise to me. I also noticed a lot of people meeting up to exercise or walk - often one or both arriving in vehicles. It would be a shame to discourage that kind of activity.


This sparks a half-baked/hopelessly naive idea: can you create a more 'sanctioned' space for this evening crowd to gather? Like the west zoo lot on St Patrick's Island?

This sort of thing already happens a lot at St Patricks Island.

 

[Sambo]

Great idea, but we don't even need the redevelopment. Now that's worth closing the road for, have a seasonal beer garden/park extension built between Crescent Heights Park and the edge of the bluff. Do it right and raise up the roadway so it's quality. Better yet divert the pathway behind a beer garden and have it right on the bluff.

View attachment 391988

Ottawa is not known to be a particularly interesting or innovative city, but one thing they nailed is the beer garden in the public park idea, at least in a North American context. They have them all over the place, city centre and further out. They are simple and seasonal, but that's kind of the point. Something like this in Major's Hill Park would be a slam dunk in Crescent Heights:

View attachment 391989

View attachment 391990

Here's another Ottawa example in a far more suburban context. Kind of like Angel's in Edworthy Park, but way more casual with sprawling, temporary patios and pathway oriented:
View attachment 391991

In order for this to happen, Calgary would need to break (at least) 4 very tough mental barriers:

1. It's okay for uses to mix such as parks/pathways/houses/seasonal beer gardens
2. All perceived nuisances from mixing uses can be as handled via operational design and enforcement rather than blanket bans on activities (e.g. to avoid noise at night, no outdoor speakers and patio closes at 10pm v. to avoid noise at night, no patios are allowed ever, anywhere within walking distance)
3. Residents of Crescent Heights (or any neighbourhood) have no unique right to the publicly owned space in their neighbourhood including the park and street
4. Streets can be things other than for cars all year round and the world won't end

That's a lot to push through.

Normally I would say Crescents Heights probably isn't the place to start with my kind of "radical" Ottawa-style park reform, but the more I think about it it might be a great opportunity. After all, the arguably "more appropriate" places (e.g. a main street, Bow River Pathway etc.) can't seem to overcome these barriers either, likely because they have far more powerful resistors to reform via parks and transportation departments, existing festivals, stronger competing demands etc.

Crescent Heights has proven demand and there's a half block of Crescent Road that's over 100m from any house. Take all that suspicious loitering the community is concerned with, and put it to good work as patrons of a beer garden. Plus a new profit centre for the parks department

Some type of food/beer spot up there would be awesome. It would make a killing.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

This isn't Calgary, or even AB related, but a 42 story tower is breaking ground in Kelowna soon and I just gotta say it's nuts what's going on in that city.

KelownaNow: VIDEO: Kelowna's tallest residential development breaks ground.

VIDEO: Kelowna's tallest residential development breaks ground

It’s been in the making for just over four years. Construction on Kelowna’s largest and tallest residential development is now unde.

www.kelownanow.com

I worked in Kelowna for a few months this summer and it's unbelievable how much inner city development is going on there. There's so much demand for housing, and virtually no more land left to extend outward to, that the city is building up. It'll be really interesting to see what that city is like in 20 years if these development trends continue.

Besides the obvious issue of affordability, geographic constraints almost seem like the single best predictor of how densely cities develop. Part of me wishes Calgary was similarly constrained around our borders and were effectively forced to build up.

 

[outoftheice]

Interesting development out of Edmonton. Seems to go far beyond the tweaks we are planning here in Calgary. I wonder if it will make our Council and Admin more ambitious or if the guidebook discussion has left everyone here running scared.

Edmonton's omnibus zoning bylaw would change entire city and limit development rules

The bylaw would boost density and housing types allowed, like small apartments, rowhouses, garden suites, and supportive housing.

edmontonjournal.com

 

[Daemon]

Gates on Calgary’s Crescent Road being considered for master plan and safety issues - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

A popular spot for running, graduation photos and having lunch, Crescent Heights residents also say it comes with noise, garbage, speeding and crime.

globalnews.ca

As someone who cycles on it a fair bit I wouldn't miss the vehicles, but it does reek of nimbyism.

I live close from there, but me I think the road should be for allowing for cars. Exception for cars that are loud. Maybe there will be only one direction and little parking? I don't know.

 

[Duck Lightning]

If they do put a gate on Crescent Road they should have parking for everyone else that wants to enjoy the view. Also the road should be treated like a park and be closed to visitors after 11 PM. I'd rather they didn't have to gate the road though.

 

[lemongrab]

Interesting development out of Edmonton. Seems to go far beyond the tweaks we are planning here in Calgary. I wonder if it will make our Council and Admin more ambitious or if the guidebook discussion has left everyone here running scared.

Edmonton's omnibus zoning bylaw would change entire city and limit development rules

The bylaw would boost density and housing types allowed, like small apartments, rowhouses, garden suites, and supportive housing.

edmontonjournal.com

A few interesting nuggets from the article:

Outside Anthony Henday Drive, residential lots have slightly different rules.

This part couldn't possibly backfire, right?

Councillors on Tuesday also approved, in principle, another strategy that divides the city into 15 districts and tosses out potentially hundreds of neighbourhood plans.

Also interesting...I'm sure there's a bit more nuance than that phrasing, but it'll be interesting to see how it plays out.


TIL a few interesting things about Edmonton municipal governance: they renamed their wards to indigenous names, and their ward boundaries seem like they might mitigate polarity between suburbia and -city (though I wonder how that plays out within each ward)? Or maybe it's just that the wards seem less homogeneous than Calgary?

 

[haltcatchfire]

Thought I read a neighbourhood called Trumpster Area up in the north, but I guess it’s actually Trumpeter.

 

[Urban Outdoorsman]

Wow. I thought the guidebook was contentious! Good for Edmonton if they can make it happen, but I have a hard time imagining this going over well.

I have to say I like that they're actually going ahead and just blanket up-zoning. I wish the LAP process went as far as actually up-zoning.

 

[Mountain Man]

Haha good luck spelling those ward names Edmontonians!

 

[zagox]

Interesting development out of Edmonton. Seems to go far beyond the tweaks we are planning here in Calgary. I wonder if it will make our Council and Admin more ambitious or if the guidebook discussion has left everyone here running scared.

Edmonton's omnibus zoning bylaw would change entire city and limit development rules

The bylaw would boost density and housing types allowed, like small apartments, rowhouses, garden suites, and supportive housing.

edmontonjournal.com

I have no idea whether this will pass or fail but it just seems so much more honest and straightforward than the Guidebook.

Clearly administration wanted to upzone all RC1 and RC2 to RCG, so basically duplexes and rowhouses are allowed everywhere. However, they didn't put that on the table for Council to debate.

Instead, they chose to create a Guidebook that said, we will create local area plans in which the lowest intensity recommended is RCG. And then eventually landowners could use that policy to upzone any RC1/2 lot to RCG fairly easily. I think they imagined that no one would notice that the long-term results would be basically the same as Edmonton's plan. But there were plenty of observant and well-funded people in Elbow Park who saw through this plan.

So, instead of having an honest conversation about the merits of RC1 and RC2 zoning, we had an unnecessarily complex and technocratic proposal that most people viewed with a lot of skepticism about its ulterior motives. And the only interest group that really followed along and made a stink about it were the rich homeowners in fancy RC1 neighborhoods.

It will be very interesting to see what happens in Edmonton. We will probably need a few years of 'cooling down' from the Guidebook before anyone is ready to put forward something similar.

 

[lemongrab]

I'm not at all versed in the minutia of zoning, but have any cities tried a rigorous formula-based approach?

Obviously there would be room for shenanigans when determining the input variables, and you'd likely end up with a few funky results that don't necessarily pass the eye test, but it seems like you could improve the transparency and bake in some graduated lead-time variables so people can't complain about a rug being pulled under them...

Not sure if that's at all clear...I'm thinking inputs would include things like:
- proximity to core
- proximity to transit
- population density
- community age (ie. how long an area has existed, not resident age)
- utility/service/geographical constraints
- etc

Resulting in a 0-100 score, with different bands meaning different zoning. Maybe it would need to be a multi-axis thing. You could either set the thresholds to change gradually over-time, or ensure that the inputs will move towards increased density over time.

It seems like it might be such an uphill battle (and political football) to make immediate/near-term changes, whereas a longer-term system could preclude staunch opposition...