Marc and Mada | 62m | 19s | Truman | NORR

I'm genuinely surprised at how few people showed up to speak against it... wouldn't be surprised if it's a summer time thing...

In terms of the number of Councillors voting for it... call me cynical, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Truman is local and the guy who runs it loves to donate to municipal campaigns and Rio Can is a REIT with a head office across the country and probably never donates to municipal campaigns.... right?
 
outoftheice said:
I'm genuinely surprised at how few people showed up to speak against it... wouldn't be surprised if it's a summer time thing...

In terms of the number of Councillors voting for it... call me cynical, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Truman is local and the guy who runs it loves to donate to municipal campaigns and Rio Can is a REIT with a head office across the country and probably never donates to municipal campaigns.... right?
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I'd be inclined to say the biggest reason Glenmore Landing was denied is because of the heavy moneyed interest against the project — billboards, websites, colour-coordinated t-shirts, fake CGI out-of-proportion renderings — they were extremely motivated and had money to boot. Riocan, while having money, was not motivated to actually put up a fight. The wealthy retired residents of the area couldn't stand to see a few towers in their backyard and had nothing better to do with their time than stand in front of council and complain about birds flying into buildings and dog poop on the sidewalk, all to prevent housing and amenities from being built.

Unfortunately, this council took the bait, even though the Glenmore Landing site is a glaringly obvious spot to put that kind of density.

Now the NIMBY's are emboldened, and developers are disinclined to propose projects in certain areas of the City with those kinds of highly-motivated, wealthy, NIMBY residents.* I expect this, in the future, to play out in a sort of disproportionate fashion, with some neighbourhoods in the city becoming lively, walkable, dense, mixed-use areas, and some slowly rotting away, akin to those of Detroit. Marda loop being an example of the former, where, as @MJC said, "The lid is off for density."

Calgary has always been a city of extremes, and it seems we are only marching further down that path.

* = Some areas of the city are wealthy but not NIMBY (younger homeowners, newer areas that are more accepting of development, i.e. West Springs), and some areas are NIMBY, but don't have enough wealth to fight development (gentrification).
 
I am surprised at the lack of opposition according to my wife's reporting on the local facebook outrage at the project there is opposition. People are probably just so tired of complaining about the road construction they've lost interest in this project. Also shows it is one thing to post on facebook and another to actually show up. Next up in marda loop is that big density add just up the block towards the safeway: LOC2025-0010
 
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outoftheice said:
I'm genuinely surprised at how few people showed up to speak against it... wouldn't be surprised if it's a summer time thing...

In terms of the number of Councillors voting for it... call me cynical, but it wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Truman is local and the guy who runs it loves to donate to municipal campaigns and Rio Can is a REIT with a head office across the country and probably never donates to municipal campaigns.... right?
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well......I have a different take on it. Some of my collogues were discussing this. We were surprises it got approved but the general consensus as to why is that the city just got fed up with how poorly that site has been handled over the years and were eager to get it developed. Not saying that is what happened. I would caution lumping George in with the rest of the builders/developers in the city. If there is one thing I've learned, he does things quite differently.
 
Political machinations and opposition from some loud voices in the community aside, I think it was a hard project to oppose, both practically and from a policy perspective.

It's a dense, pedestrian-oriented, grocery store with retail, on a Main Street in an identified priority area for growth. It even comes with above minimum parking capacity. Put another way, it's one of the better examples of everything our plans, policies and investment choices have been saying we want for decades. This is what development looks like when a city (successfully) sets the policy and planning framework to transition into "big city" redevelopment phase. It's not earth-shattering, but it's highly competent.

And - can't emphasize this enough - it's a grocery store! Many neighbourhoods would kill for better grocery access and choice. We always talk about how much people hate tall buildings and lack of parking, forgetting that people actually love stuff too - particularly grocery stores nearby. I think if the question was asked, we'd find that people's love of nearby grocery stores exceeds their fears of the impacts of tall buildings.

Developments are always a bit unique and economics change from site to site, but if you could "standardize" this exact development (e.g. a walkable cluster of 6 - 19 storey buildings, retail & grocery store, 700 units) and offer it to every community and at every LRT station in the parking lot, I think most communities would actually take you up on it.
 
Roaring Flames said:
"Strong opposition" so strong that barely anyone showed up to oppose it
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Am I the only one who can't help but feel NIMBY voices are continuously being overrepresented in local media? Hell, Rise barely got a week before hit pieces from CTV started coming out. And all of that when hardly anyone from the communities in question actually care.
 
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CT (Chinese_T) said:
Am I the only one who can't help but feel NIMBY voices are continuously being overrepresented in local media? Hell, Rise barely got a week before hit pieces from CTV started coming out. And all of that when barely anyone from the communities in question actually cares.
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I'm thinking the same thing. Every time there's a proposal and a handful of people oppose it, the media jumps on it. I mean when was the last time we saw the media post a story about people supporting a development?
 
Surrealplaces said:
I'm thinking the same thing. Every time there's a proposal and a handful of people oppose it, the media jumps on it. I mean when was the last time we saw the media post a story about people supporting a development?
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For sure. You already have people complaining that the new hotel is too tall for where its being built. Wtf? So where could you build it then?
 
Surrealplaces said:
I'm thinking the same thing. Every time there's a proposal and a handful of people oppose it, the media jumps on it. I mean when was the last time we saw the media post a story about people supporting a development?
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Agreed. To be fair, the media wants people's attention and controversy (even if mostly illusionary) helps do that.
 
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