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In terms of Stephen Ave, the issue as I see it is that these businesses are going to push the City into repeating their past mistakes with 17th Ave and Marda Loop. In both cases the initial plan was a fast and furious rebuild of the street. Then the businesses along there complained that it would be too much disruption and asked for a slower, less intense, build process. The City relented and as construction progressed the businesses all started to realize that people hate construction whether it's minor or major and stretching out the timelines for construction make it worse... to the point where the Marda Loop businesses are now suing because of the impacts of the longer construction timeline that they, themselves asked for!

So here we go, about to make the same mistakes with Sonya Sharp cheerleading the way. I also question how much of this concern is being raised in good faith given the fact some of the businesses are complaining about parking and paving stones from Vietnam. Stephen Ave hasn't had parking on it for years and if you choose to set up a business there, it's a bit rich to complain about no parking around your business. And unless the designers have made a totally dumb decision on material choices and forgotten that Calgary is indeed a winter city, complaining about foreign made pavers being extra slippery just seems like a wedge issue and an excuse to complain.
 
outoftheice said:
In terms of Stephen Ave, the issue as I see it is that these businesses are going to push the City into repeating their past mistakes with 17th Ave and Marda Loop. In both cases the initial plan was a fast and furious rebuild of the street. Then the businesses along there complained that it would be too much disruption and asked for a slower, less intense, build process. The City relented and as construction progressed the businesses all started to realize that people hate construction whether it's minor or major and stretching out the timelines for construction make it worse... to the point where the Marda Loop businesses are now suing because of the impacts of the longer construction timeline that they, themselves asked for!

So here we go, about to make the same mistakes with Sonya Sharp cheerleading the way. I also question how much of this concern is being raised in good faith given the fact some of the businesses are complaining about parking and paving stones from Vietnam. Stephen Ave hasn't had parking on it for years and if you choose to set up a business there, it's a bit rich to complain about no parking around your business. And unless the designers have made a totally dumb decision on material choices and forgotten that Calgary is indeed a winter city, complaining about foreign made pavers being extra slippery just seems like a wedge issue and an excuse to complain.
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Yeah the "foreign-made" paver thing and the fact people will be unsafe walking near construction fencing near homeless people is where they lost me - it's a total shotgun approach to cast doubts on the project. There's legitimate construction timing and impact concerns that can be discussed, but credibility goes out the window with references like that.

More productively, one idea that I was thinking about in these street rebuild sagas is we always try to do it all at once with utilities and surface stuff. Perhaps we either:
  1. Make all streetscape projects dependent on a trigger by a utility projects (e.g. sorry your drinking water pipe is broken and lives depend on it so we have no choice - we are digging up your street. As a bonus when we put back the sidewalks they will be upgraded).
  2. Ignore utility projects altogether (all we are doing is quickly fixing the bricks and adding nice trees, we don't need to move utilities for that and save 50% of the construction time).
Obviously #2 results in extra costs that the utility coming in later and ripping everything up again, but public perception is often how this is works anyways. It's not clear that either of these would stop the complains or result in a better public realm though!

My other thought is surely construction impacts is a universal problem the world over - how do European cities maintain they're stellar/far more busy walkable public streets with centuries of utilities, metros and infrastructure needing maintenance underneath them? Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?

Or is the whole world forever condemned to have construction impacts and grumbling locals - so best to just get on with it and let people complain?
 
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CBBarnett said:
Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?
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Weighting construction time as a cost in the evaluation of bids.

Prioritizing time can seriously push costs, as it causes sub-contractors to schedule a fair amount of idle time to ensure their workers and equipment are ready when the project is ready for them.

A good part of it we can't change is how deep our utilities need to be, and how engineered out streets need to be, to deal with regular freeze-thaw cycles and frost heave.

In my experience in Europe, I'd note that streets need to be quite wide before they're programmed with as many elements as we want on 8th, especially street trees.

We might also not be conducting full life-cycle analysis on material choices, prioritizing low maintenance versus capital costs above ease to remove and replace as piecemeal work is done, or cost of repairs versus projected service life without repairs.

In many parts of Europe, water utilities are quasi privatized (assets and operations are leased to private companies), and when they open up the street, they have to pay rent to the municipality, to incentivize speed and innovation (smaller work sites, less digging).
 
CBBarnett said:
Yeah the "foreign-made" paver thing and the fact people will be unsafe walking near construction fencing near homeless people is where they lost me - it's a total shotgun approach to cast doubts on the project. There's legitimate construction timing and impact concerns that can be discussed, but credibility goes out the window with references like that.

More productively, one idea that I was thinking about in these street rebuild sagas is we always try to do it all at once with utilities and surface stuff. Perhaps we either:
  1. Make all streetscape projects dependent on a trigger by a utility projects (e.g. sorry your drinking water pipe is broken and lives depend on it so we have no choice - we are digging up your street. As a bonus when we put back the sidewalks they will be upgraded).
  2. Ignore utility projects altogether (all we are doing is quickly fixing the bricks and adding nice trees, we don't need to move utilities for that and save 50% of the construction time).
Obviously #2 results in extra costs that the utility coming in later and ripping everything up again, but public perception is often how this is works anyways. It's not clear that either of these would stop the complains or result in a better public realm though!

My other thought is surely construction impacts is a universal problem the world over - how do European cities maintain they're stellar/far more busy walkable public streets with centuries of utilities, metros and infrastructure needing maintenance underneath them? Is there anything to learn about construction phasing/length that can help us out?

Or is the whole world forever condemned to have construction impacts and grumbling locals - so best to just get on with it and let people complain?
Click to expand...
The problems I see with 1, is that they'd need design/consultation. Very hard to do detailed design then wait until some emergency to do the work since the design may no longer work.
And 2, I think cost is probably the main reason. If it came out that they're ripping up a street they did 2 years ago, you can imagine all the political pandering about waste at city hall.

I'd say it's a framing problem. The city obviously wants to show off the fancy redesign, but maybe we should position things as utilities work first, especially after the recent water crisis. "We have to replace the aging pipe here to avoid the same situtaiton that happened last year, and while we're doing that, we'll put the street back nicer". It's what I've noticed with Toronto construction when I was living there, they'd always mention replacing the however old water main, along with the infrastructure work.

"According to the city, a 100-year-old water main below the street needs replacing and the replacement presents an opportunity to redesign the iconic street."
 
I've gone out of my way to support Marda Loop businesses throughout construction as I know it hurts them. That includes Annabelle's Kitchen, which has been a good experience each time I've gone. People have been able to drive right to their doorstep the whole time but I get that some will avoid going as getting there is more inconvenient than usual and that hurts their bottom line.

Threatening to sue the city to prevent replacing aging infrastructure is something I can't support. So I don't think I will be going to Annabelle's any more. More money for other places in the neighborhood I guess!
 
This is a bit wonkish, but my understanding is most multi-family rental projects use the CMHC MLI Select program to finance constructions. I wonder if the decision to increase rates will have a cooling effect on new projects in Calgary or if people who have been sitting permits will race to try to put shovels in the ground before the July 14th rate change? Will private lenders step in to help finance projects or is CMHC's moves the ultimate influence in multi-family construction? I guess no matter what this means rents in new builds will likely go up at a time when the government is trying to get them to go down.

CMHC to Update Multi-Unit Mortgage Loan Insurance Premiums

Every year, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) reviews premiums to ensure our products are appropriately priced based on loan risk, capital requirements, and to ensure CMHC can continue to offer these products no matter the economic climate.
www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
 
A cool proposal coming to Cowtown, and it’s even taking climate change into consideration as part of the proposal.
IMG_3197.jpeg
 
About 75 million years too late for oceanfront property in Alberta 🤣🥲
 
IanBray said:
Interesting land use re-designation application has been submitted for a 13-story building on a residential street in Bankview. Building will be located one block west of 14th street at the very top of the hill, behind the Starbucks/rooftop bug commercial building.

It's currently a couple of bungalows with tallest building around there is 3 stories however the developer is going for 13 stories (ballsy) on the back of the new City of Calgary West Elbow Communities Local Area Plan and Municipal Development Plan which suggested these blocks could be 8-12 stories as part of the city rezoning. I find it really hard to see how 13 stories would fly here considering that it is across the street from Mount Royal, the richest and most powerful residents in the city, and would block out their sunlight big time. The development is also not a full block so would need to be a skinny midrise akin to Nest.

02 Planning is involved. They have equipment on site for weeks now. I asked the guy what they are doing, and he said that it is for geothermal heating for the building which is a first for Calgary. Apparently, the developer wants to put a rooftop garden/solarium and a restaurant on the roof. Again, very odd for a residential street that is off the main street (14th street). I see this getting a lot of opposition given the 13 stories.

DMap

DMap
dmap.calgary.ca dmap.calgary.ca

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There is a website for this 12 storey bankview project which will be called The Daisy.

Land Use Redesignation - 2502-2516 14A Street SW

www.engagedaisy14a.ca www.engagedaisy14a.ca
"The Daisy will deliver:
  • Publicly accessible rooftop all-seasons garden
  • '88 Olympics Interpretive Centre
  • Not-for-profit office space
  • Affordable, accessible housing
  • New housing"
 
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