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konradiical said:
Like I don't get why this city always fails with these massive projects. Like even Ottawa can eventually pump out something good, while all our massive developments blow nowadays
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I really wish people outside of the design profession (and armchair fans) would start to see the value that great design brings.

A good Arena & Public Realm design nets the owners significantly more money in the medium to long term than a cheap building would save them. Hire smart, educated, experienced people who are passionate about their communities, and with records of excellence. Listen to their advice. Sure your capital investment is higher, but (continuous) revenue generated would far outweigh that. Everyone would benefit so much more, it's just harder to quantify that in an excel formula so it gets overlooked.
 
Duck Lightning said:
Interesting that the redesign of Stephen Ave stretches all the way to 11th Street SW
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Really glad to see it. It def should go all the way, would be nice to see west of 3rd become part of the retail strip eventually
 
konradiical said:
Like I don't get why this city always fails with these massive projects. Like even Ottawa can eventually pump out something good, while all our massive developments blow nowadays
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Calgary coat.png
 
Mission Bridge over the Elbow is getting a update! Noted they were doing boreholes into the soil under the pavement on the bridge (or so the engineer on site told me). I didn't realize road bridges still had soil beds under the pavement.

I wish the questions didn't have people rate "maintaining the current look of the bridge" without rating for "who cares about the old look, make it look good and tie in the new staircase to Elbow Island"

engage.calgary.ca

Mission Bridge Rehabilitation

The rehabilitation is planned for 2024 to address concrete deterioration and improve the overall mobility for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists.
engage.calgary.ca engage.calgary.ca
 
Urban4Lyfe said:
The city will stop catering to cars when something less than 90% of the city doesn't live in car oriented suburbs.

There are thousands of voters in this city who want no investment into bike lanes at all and while they will probably never even use this road I guarantee if they hear bike lanes the next thing out of their mouths will be "waste of taxpayer dollars".
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That's why its even more important to fight for alternative modes of transportation in these relatively low profile projects that don't impact many people and are not on the minds of the public. Also, so many urban design decisions are made by technocrats outside the realm of electoral politics. Its the road engineers who forced through wide turn radii, slip lanes, etc. The most effective way of promoting alternative transportation is to pressure the technocrats to revise their standard operating procedures and the default street design.
 
The construction tender is out for another of the downtown office conversion projects .... 112 units at 909 5th Ave SW.

newsroom.calgary.ca

City announces first three downtown office-to-residential conversion projects approved for funding

The City of Calgary is pleased to announce the first three successful applicants to the Downtown Calgary Development Incentive Program. These three projects will infuse life into largely empty or underutilized office buildings by converting empty office space to new residential units. It’s one...
newsroom.calgary.ca newsroom.calgary.ca
https://people-1st.ca/current-projects/
 
Restricting greenfield development is an incredibly bad idea.

1. Ample greenfield development is why Calgary is cheaper than Toronto and Vancouver.

2. Upzoning/density is NOT contingent on banning greenfield development. It's a false dilemma.

3. New greenfield developments today are not like they were in the 1980's. You can build relatively dense mixed use communities.


In many ways the "anti-sprawl" arguments today are just masquerading as anti-growth arguments.
 
Not to mention at some point, you need to ask if all of your aspirational policies are REALLY what your electorate wants. When 90%+ of all new residents move to the suburbs, well, at some point, give the people what they want. And million dollar skinny infills are not an option for new families.

Meanwhile, despite all the claims of wanting to intensify and promote inner city growth, how often do we see the City's existing bylaws, design specifications, and just general overall process, make developing affordable, family oriented housing in the established area extremely difficult, if not downright impossible?
 
MichaelS said:
Not to mention at some point, you need to ask if all of your aspirational policies are REALLY what your electorate wants. When 90%+ of all new residents move to the suburbs, well, at some point, give the people what they want. And million dollar skinny infills are not an option for new families.

Meanwhile, despite all the claims of wanting to intensify and promote inner city growth, how often do we see the City's existing bylaws, design specifications, and just general overall process, make developing affordable, family oriented housing in the established area extremely difficult, if not downright impossible?
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I would say that our regulatory process has induced market participants to supply the market in a certain way. We should not assume that: it is a free market; and that if the market is free, that the free market only has one stable equilibrium and we are at it now (and that we can't change to another one).

You hit the nail on the head in the second part--the cost burden of infill development per unit may be similar fee wise, but it is much larger cost wise, in both time needed to prepare applications, regulatory risk, and land assembly risk per unit.

To be on equal footing, PER UNIT, the table likely will have to be heavily tilted towards redevelopment to achieve anything close to a 'free market' outcome in a highly regulated system.
 
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MichaelS said:
Not to mention at some point, you need to ask if all of your aspirational policies are REALLY what your electorate wants. When 90%+ of all new residents move to the suburbs, well, at some point, give the people what they want. And million dollar skinny infills are not an option for new families.
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I have a family of five and we're living in a skinny inner-city infill (which cost us much less than a million). Not everyone needs a McMansion, especially when you have amenities close by. More generally, the average household size in Calgary is something like 2.5. And yet SFHs make up the majority of household units in this city - much, much higher than other large cities in Canada.

MichaelS said:
Meanwhile, despite all the claims of wanting to intensify and promote inner city growth, how often do we see the City's existing bylaws, design specifications, and just general overall process, make developing affordable, family oriented housing in the established area extremely difficult, if not downright impossible?
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Can't argue with you there. I don't think people in general aspire to live on the exurban fringes of the city. I think over the past half century, North American cities have built housing markets that incentive sprawl and restrict densification, as well as placing addition costs on households in terms of transportation, etc.
 
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