Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

[trtcttc]

There's two ways of looking at it - do we deserve to be rewarded for what we've always been doing (building lots of houses), even if it keeps us on a path towards becoming Houston/Phoenix? Or, is the funding meant to incentivize change for the better?

The wording is intentionally vague because this is akin to a philanthropy agreement. It is counter-productive to nail everything down super specifically. The risks of breaking trust with the benefactor should be enough to keep the beneficiary in line. Of course it's a bit unique here where there is so much turnover in both the individuals signing and receiving the cheques. But admin is right to warn the risks of being perceived as pulling a bait and switch.

R-G is basically R-CG for new developments. Outcome based it still results in mostly SFHs, which is fine, but not really a strong claim for solving the missing-middle problem.

50% is a totally arbitrary number (and IMO the word significant bumps that threshold well above that mark). And again, there's two ways of looking at it - 50% of units being under R4+ zoning is very different than 50% of lots.

We're all on an urban development forum so generally pro development. But I think there's a lot of narratives that go on with these arguments. Is it really true being New York is better than Houston or Phoenix? Or are they just different cities for different people that want different things. There's always the infrastructure arguments. But when you look at cities where the low density and high density areas are split up and taxed differently in a given area, we don't see Vancouver collecting far less tax than Richmond, or Toronto needing less revenue than Mississauga, it's often the contrary. And places like Texas is not a useful analogy for this because the reason their property taxes are high is because of no state income tax. Less roads to maintain, less length of sewers, etc. But transit is very expensive, replacing utilities is far more expensive in urban areas than suburban.

In the suburban context, if developers are still building SFH, then the middle housing is not "missing". We can't force people to build things people don't want. We bought our place that is zoned M-C1 and in a rapidly developing inner city area, so I'm not against citywide rezoning, but I also think if people oppose it, and there is truly a cost difference, we should look at taxation that aligns with the cost burden. If people want to pay more to maintain their big yards, so be it.

 

[Cgloins]

Your argument ignores climate change and also the massive cost of things that are pushed into the private realm that are ignored in taxes such as cost of cars, privately maintained lawns, etc. Also what people are building isn’t necessarily what would be built if zoning was different. What is being built is influenced by the ease of getting permitting done to build multi family vs SFHs.

New York vs. Houston isn’t a case of different preferences when one is creating a world that will involve mass death and displacement for animals and people. This is an existential crisis.

 

[darwink]

We are clearly not dealing with a government that works in outcomes, because then by no means should Calgary even be in conversation of losing any funding, being one of the fastest builder of housing in the country on a per capita and overall basis. As long as we can put those numbers so it's something below 50% for R-C1, etc. we can check the beauracratic box. 2022 would be missing a lot of the new suburban land, which I think defaults to R-CG? And there's a bunch of communities that aren't built yet, but has been approved, maybe those count too. It's funny how our government funding agreements aren't legal contracts but uses words like "significant majority".

As said before, the outcome here is the rules, to help reset the equilibrium of the number of units the city will produce at given levels of demand. The effect of the rule change will be far less in Calgary than Vancouver or Toronto.

So be careful what you wish for?

 

[trtcttc]

As said before, the outcome here is the rules, to help reset the equilibrium of the number of units the city will produce at given levels of demand. The effect of the rule change will be far less in Calgary than Vancouver or Toronto.

So be careful what you wish for?

Yes rewarding bad historical performance is a bad idea. Even if the outcomes are the rules, these flimsy rules that nobody seems to even precisely know is bad policy. There should be benchmarks such as DP/BP timelines, construction speed, cost, zoning, etc. that is standardized as a total factor to housing starts/price. If you are already 90% towards the goal, then there's 10% left for you to do. If you're only 30% towards the goal, then you need to improve 70% to get the funding.

In this scenario below, Halifax would be rewarded, even if their outcomes are not great. But these arbitrary targets of "majority of the land is zoned for 4-plex" or "commit to review development charges" is just bad policy. There should be a formula that cities can calculate and see how far they are from the goal and what funding they'd receive. You can factor in certain things like size of municipality or what type of housing, but there's no reason we should award Ottawa for zoning amendments taking 16.4 months, while we, a similar sized city can do it in 5.4 months. If the benchmark for 1-2M sized municipality is 7 months, then that's the target for everyone. if you are 16.4, then you need to reduce it by 9.4, if you're at 5.4 like Calgary, you're already pass the benchmark and get your funding.

https://www.chba.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/chba-municipal-benchmarking-study-3rd-edition-2024.pdf

 

[Chowda7]

Calgary releases first priority projects under GamePLAN recreation strategy - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

The list from the City of Calgary includes new facilities and upgrades to aging recreation centres, as well as some projects currently underway.

globalnews.ca

 

[MichaelS]

The NE recreation facility at 8500 and 8710 - 40 Street NE is going to CPC next week:
Report, Background, Applicant Submission, DP Drawings, UDRP Comments,

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Calgary releases first priority projects under GamePLAN recreation strategy - Calgary | Globalnews.ca

The list from the City of Calgary includes new facilities and upgrades to aging recreation centres, as well as some projects currently underway.

globalnews.ca

Does the fieldhouse not include an aquatics component?

On the list... there is also the Foothills Fieldhouse. I really think they should solve the McMahon thing before going forward with a fieldhouse, the options on that parcel really change with out McMahon.

• Foothills Aquatic & Fitness Centre Redevelopment

 

[CBBarnett]

The NE recreation facility at 8500 and 8710 - 40 Street NE is going to CPC next week:
Report, Background, Applicant Submission, DP Drawings, UDRP Comments,

View attachment 731736
View attachment 731737

Great project. I am always skeptical of how they figure the surface parking they need for these kinds of things, because it's clearly a total guessing game that's pretending to be some sort of established science.

Proposal is for 548 surface parking stalls, so about 1/4 of the land area of the project. My first thought is they sized it for a bunch of pretty rare assumptions - every field in full use at the same time + assuming the next team is arriving + spectator event that attracts are few hundred more cars. Also assumes that street parking has no role to play here (of course - just because development doesn't assume street parking "counts" to supply, doesn't mean we would ever build a street to exclude the possibility of street parking).

On an individual site perspective it's not a really big deal - who cares? But the aggregation of thousands of similar site designs with excessive parking is the problem and how we end up with a city with 5x the amount of parking stall as cars. It's no surprise that about half of all public land in the NE devoted to storm ponds - it's because we paved the other half

 

[CalgaryTiger]

Great project. I am always skeptical of how they figure the surface parking they need for these kinds of things, because it's clearly a total guessing game that's pretending to be some sort of established science.

Proposal is for 548 surface parking stalls, so about 1/4 of the land area of the project. My first thought is they sized it for a bunch of pretty rare assumptions - every field in full use at the same time + assuming the next team is arriving + spectator event that attracts are few hundred more cars. Also assumes that street parking has no role to play here (of course - just because development doesn't assume street parking "counts" to supply, doesn't mean we would ever build a street to exclude the possibility of street parking).

On an individual site perspective it's not a really big deal - who cares? But the aggregation of thousands of similar site designs with excessive parking is the problem and how we end up with a city with 5x the amount of parking stall as cars. It's no surprise that about half of all public land in the NE devoted to storm ponds - it's because we paved the other half

It must be someone's job to ask for every development, "but where will they park?"

 

[trtcttc]

Does the fieldhouse not include an aquatics component?

On the list... there is also the Foothills Fieldhouse. I really think they should solve the McMahon thing before going forward with a fieldhouse, the options on that parcel really change with out McMahon.

• Foothills Aquatic & Fitness Centre Redevelopment

The arena and pools were initially part of phase something but I doubt will ever get built. The pool, arenas, and existing athletic park are not being moved as part of the fieldhouse building, so that's why I think the pool is getting redeveloped and potentially expanded. The fieldhouse is going in where the baseball stadium was and there's some other facilities there now, but smaller, training ones.

The fieldhouse is 3 distinct field areas.

1. Hydraulic banked track and sprint lanes
2. Gymnasia hall that can convert for different things but size wise is 11 basketball courts
3. Artificial turf about the size of a FIFA soccer pitch

I think we should proceed with the fieldhouse as is. The facility is slated to be massive already, I don't think we'd expand it anymore even with additional land. And whatever happens to McMahon, I don't see how it conflicts with the fieldhouse. If it is demolished, we'd still build the fieldhouse where it is now. It's taken half a decade to get to this point with no shovels on the ground, if we wait for McMahon that's another 5 years to decide on McMahon, few years for demolition, and then another decade for planning and building a fieldhouse. If this is identified as a need now, a generation of people would grow up before this thing gets built.

 

[CalgaryTiger]

The arena and pools were initially part of phase something but I doubt will ever get built. The pool, arenas, and existing athletic park are not being moved as part of the fieldhouse building, so that's why I think the pool is getting redeveloped and potentially expanded. The fieldhouse is going in where the baseball stadium was and there's some other facilities there now, but smaller, training ones.

The fieldhouse is 3 distinct field areas.

1. Hydraulic banked track and sprint lanes
2. Gymnasia hall that can convert for different things but size wise is 11 basketball courts
3. Artificial turf about the size of a FIFA soccer pitch

I think we should proceed with the fieldhouse as is. The facility is slated to be massive already, I don't think we'd expand it anymore even with additional land. And whatever happens to McMahon, I don't see how it conflicts with the fieldhouse. If it is demolished, we'd still build the fieldhouse where it is now. It's taken half a decade to get to this point with no shovels on the ground, if we wait for McMahon that's another 5 years to decide on McMahon, few years for demolition, and then another decade for planning and building a fieldhouse. If this is identified as a need now, a generation of people would grow up before this thing gets built.

That second "Events Centre" attempt was turned around pretty quickly once everything came together. I think if people are motivated the same can happen here. I don't think the timeline needs to be as long as you describe.

 

[Roaring Flames]

I personally would have rather they went all in and built the foothills fieldhouse as a full leisure centre, but I understand the cost likely made that impractical (hence the staging approach).

 

[MichaelS]

Great project. I am always skeptical of how they figure the surface parking they need for these kinds of things, because it's clearly a total guessing game that's pretending to be some sort of established science.

Proposal is for 548 surface parking stalls, so about 1/4 of the land area of the project. My first thought is they sized it for a bunch of pretty rare assumptions - every field in full use at the same time + assuming the next team is arriving + spectator event that attracts are few hundred more cars. Also assumes that street parking has no role to play here (of course - just because development doesn't assume street parking "counts" to supply, doesn't mean we would ever build a street to exclude the possibility of street parking).

On an individual site perspective it's not a really big deal - who cares? But the aggregation of thousands of similar site designs with excessive parking is the problem and how we end up with a city with 5x the amount of parking stall as cars. It's no surprise that about half of all public land in the NE devoted to storm ponds - it's because we paved the other half

To be fair, in this context, there is no on-street parking available. Metis Trail, 80th Av and 88th Av are all larger scale divided arterials with no on-street parking. 40th Street NE is an industrial street, again, no on-street parking permitted to ensure the larger scale truck traffic can manouvre on the roadways in and out of sites. If on-street parking was introduced, the asphalt width (and thus road right-of-way) would need to increase.

It must be someone's job to ask for every development, "but where will they park?"

Yes, this is the Mobility Generalist in DART (represents all aspects of Transportation when reviewing files). It is a bit of a grey area though, as the land use bylaw removed parking minimums from the bylaw. Now, it is left to the "discretion" of the reviewer. For the most part, it is whatever the applicant requests (it is their land and cost to provide it), but in some contexts you can get a reviewer that will disagree and ask for more parking, even when the bylaw requirement is actually zero.

 

[trtcttc]

That second "Events Centre" attempt was turned around pretty quickly once everything came together. I think if people are motivated the same can happen here. I don't think the timeline needs to be as long as you describe.

The difference is the Event Centre has a multi-billion dollar sports franchise and one of the big 4 sports leagues behind it. This is a municipal facility for amateur and recreation sports.

 

[trtcttc]

I personally would have rather they went all in and built the foothills fieldhouse as a full leisure centre, but I understand the cost likely made that impractical (hence the staging approach).

The fieldhouse component as is, is 462,730 sq ft spread across 2 floors, and most of that is on floor 1. The footprint will likely be almost 400,000 sqft. The Seton YMCA is 330,000 and Rocky Ridge is 284,000. Southland Leisure Centre is about 227,000. Adding an ice rink and pool would probably make this the largest indoor facility in the country.