Just build it
Active Member
16th ave taking in a different feel with Harmony and Munro. It’s starting to feel like a urban boulevard
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Between this and the CF land use, we could eventually see the high rise cluster at Chinook that many of us would like to see.
Cowtown
Senior Member
With the Jemm project starting and Sydney looking like it might start we’ll see a different look soon.
Albertasaurus
Active Member
It's quite remarkable how a couple of 6 storey wood frame buildings have made such a difference on 16th. With Jemm now seemingly underway, Sydney hopefully not far behind and the new proposal at the intersection of 6 St, plus let's not forget La Caille is proposing a couple of ~10 storey buildings by 8 St, I am optimistic that 16th will look a lot livelier in a few years.
Albertasaurus
Active Member
110-150m is impressive, and points to the Chinook area having the potential to developing into a proper "midtown" which would be really cool and would be evidence of Calgary's evolution into a true "big city".
Stephen Ave
Active Member
Judging by the pace of the project, I’d say the workers have been using them a lot.
lemongrab
Active Member
What were these amendments and would they have actually helped spur more development? Happy to see the Communities First people get called out since they seem to be the most hypocritical people on council as their speaking points are all about cutting red tape and building homes and yet the always vote against stuff that would actually help do that.
Council draws ire of Calgary developers after ‘housekeeping’ land-use changes defeated - Calgary | Globalnews.ca
In two letters sent to Calgary city council obtained by Global News, developers expressed frustration at the "introduction of politics to administrative housekeeping amendments."globalnews.ca
I did a deeper dive on this than it probably warranted, but I find city council meetings oddly entertaining.
https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=324004 (pdf) . Mostly little tweaks to clarify/cleanup language in the land-use bylaw.
it was a Public Hearing Meeting of Council, so there were dozens of public members taking their 5 minutes to speak. I scrubbed through all of that but the few seconds I caught sounded like the typical NIMBY ramblings, though I'm sure there were some thoughtful remarks in there, too.
2 of the points dominated councillors' questions to admin:
3. Mobility Storage Lockers. This was introduced in 2022 to counter-balance a reduction in parking minimums. One can appreciate the intention, but there was also a certain irony here in relation to overly prescriptive parking requirements
For decades there has been a requirement for class 1 bike facilities - which means controlled access storage area (or full bike lockers at LRT stations/etc) - ie. long term storage. Class 2 facilities means short term storage - ie. outdoor bike racks.
But in 2022 they added this:
Nice in theory, but overly prescriptive, and was forcing developers to dedicate a lot of space to this instead of living space. I think part of the intention was to apply to lower density dwellings - so a [new] basement suite would need to provide a suitable option for a tenant to secure a bike/scooter (which could still mean access to a garage or shed I think), but you'd need to go to the 2022 implementation to really drill down the details.
So the housekeeping would simply revert to the situation pre-2022. Terry Wong wasted so much time on this (I suspect it was a hot topic for the public commenters, too) - seemingly not aware of the continuing class 1 bike stall requirement, but focusing mostly on obstructed access for firefighters and potential for lithium battery fires. Gondek and others had to repeatedly explain that those issues are handled through building codes and national fire code. And that it boils down to user behaviour...I wish someone would have mentioned how parking minimums doesn't mean people necessarily park in those spaces.
I did catch a few minutes from a public member who is an architect and described her experience working in Canmore, where they have a similar but different bylaw; essentially she described success designing storage within units (a suitable space with a hook on a wall). My takeaway is that there is room to refine the class 1 requirements, instead of this overly prescriptive requirement.
But the biggest point of contention seems to have been #7:
Admin/legal were a bit cagey and very careful in how they answered questions, which I completely understand, but it also left room for people to read between the lines and see red flags that probably aren't actually real...
It seems there may have been unsolicited legal advice from a member of the public (it was referenced by a councillor at some point during debate I think...no way am I wading through the public panels to find it!) that seems to have given some councillors pause.
But it really boils down to "conservative" councillors wanting to maintain big gov't bureaucracy with as much hand-holding as possible to complainants. Admin/legal stated that last year there were 4 situations where this would have applied (which was higher than typical), and only 1 was ultimately successful in getting a stay (and that case is unresolved as it now actually goes through the courts).
Terry Wong was again absurd (tbh I had a fairly neutral perspective of him before this, despite being on the other side of the political spectrum). Basically he advocated for an even longer appeal period than the province mandates because "Calgarian's lives are so busy". Penner rightly countered this by explaining that Calgarians lives are no more complex than any other Albertans. But Wong's desire was just insanely stupid as it came after dozens of explanations that that the city does not control this part of the appeals process.
I feel like I probably don't have it 100% accurate here and perhaps others who have more direct experience with the process can shine some more light. But I think I understand it better than most of the councillors seemed to to based on the incredibly arduous question period with admin/legal (but again, I think they had valid reasons that they couldn't be as explicitly clear as would have been necessary for councillors to understand)
So in the end, it got voted down because Demong and Dhaliwal were absent for some reason. I didn't hear any of the 6 dissenters articulate a reasonable explanation for why (though Chabot came the closest).
Someone did ask for #12 to be voted on separately, which was about improving the process for opening a child-care service in an existing building - it would still follow the discretionary development permit process, instead of requiring a public hearing. This passed unanimously. However, for reasons I don't understand, Gondek and the City GM realized and had to explain that it would not actually take effect because the other items were voted down. It must be something procedural about how these housekeeping amendments work compared to other motions. So maybe it was not possible for #7 to be called separately...but I honestly don't believe that was the only sticking point for the Silly Six.
And this is why we can't have nice things.
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lemongrab
Active Member
I also meant to link this article - it is a much more succinct summary than I gave! And shows the amendments in better context within the land-use bylaw than the attachments for the council meeting
https://livewirecalgary.com/2025/05/31/developers-builders-calgary-city-council-land-use-amendments/
https://livewirecalgary.com/2025/05/31/developers-builders-calgary-city-council-land-use-amendments/
CT (Chinese_T)
Active Member
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
Noo, Without Co. Guessing they'll probably move. Seriously though, what an interesting colour. Will they actually do it?! Even if it fades it will just get lighter.
As for the one in Inglewood, Nice to see something along the MAX Route. Lots popping up around there across Deerfoot. Who knew people want to live by rapid transit?
As for the one in Inglewood, Nice to see something along the MAX Route. Lots popping up around there across Deerfoot. Who knew people want to live by rapid transit?