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General Construction Updates

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CBBarnett said:
How do I become the next Richard White? I probably have written 100,000 words of analysis and hot-takes on this site in the past 5 years. Surely some of those rants have been more factual-ish than his stuff. Would be a good side-hustle!


I like that idea. I am curious how things are done city v. city from an approvals sense and it's impact in the economics of land. Clearly there is some distortions when we give density away endlessly forever and almost everything seems approved.

I don't know if this is true or how you would quantify this, but I feel Calgary's "development success rate" from an approval perspective has to be highest around in many market segments. So much of Toronto and Vancouver are so permanently locked in single-family housing districts they seem to barely have a redevelopment industry beyond the mega project tower developments. I can't think of another city that has Calgary's level of redevelopment and infill like Altadore, West Hillhurst and Killarney to name a few areas of that low/mid-intensity replacement. Suburbs or infill, do we really ever say no to anything?

I assume there's always much to complain about regarding fees, processing times etc. for developers and builders, but I don't get the sense from the level of development we see occurring that we as a city are prohibitively restrictive. Or in the case of giving density away all the time, the issue is the other way - we are so permissive we create a market that encourages random speculation rather than development.
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We should send a petition to the CBC asking them to stop using him for these kinds of articles. It comes across as laziness on CBC's part, either that or he's related to someone who works there. Either way, they need someone young and fresh for this kind of topic. Someone who has a clue.
 
Patrick.1980 said:
We should send a petition to the CBC asking them to stop using him for these kinds of articles. It comes across as laziness on CBC's part, either that or he's related to someone who works there. Either way, they need someone young and fresh for this kind of topic. Someone who has a clue.
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CBC is to lazy to deal with a laziness issue
 
Cyric said:
This is only from glances while driving past but I thought it was only the old YWCA building that is now the home of Community Wise that is under renovation? I didn't think it encompassed the building that houses the beltline rec centre.
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Oh you might be right? I thought they were one and the same. That's a bummer.
 
CBBarnett said:
I don't know if this is true or how you would quantify this, but I feel Calgary's "development success rate" from an approval perspective has to be highest around in many market segments. So much of Toronto and Vancouver are so permanently locked in single-family housing districts they seem to barely have a redevelopment industry beyond the mega project tower developments. I can't think of another city that has Calgary's level of redevelopment and infill like Altadore, West Hillhurst and Killarney to name a few areas of that low/mid-intensity replacement. Suburbs or infill, do we really ever say no to anything?
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I've often wondered about this too. Relatedly, to what extent is the lack of high-rise residential development in downtown Calgary, which we see a lot of in Toronto and Vancouver, attributable to the fact that so much development is already occurring within Calgary's inner-city residential neighbourhoods? I can't speak for Vancouver, but you don't see anything remotely similar in Toronto to what's happening in Calgary's 1950s suburbs (e.g. Altadore). I was born in a similar-aged suburb in Scarborough. My parents bought their house for less than $100,000 in the early 80s. Today you can't get a house in the neighbourhood for under $1,000,000. But the thing is, the neighbourhood has not changed at all. Not since the 80s when I lived there; not since the 50s when it was built. Other than a few houses that added a second floor, no development has occurred at all in 70 years! The nearest new development has been a cluster of 40-storey condo towers built on nearby industrial land. It drives me crazy to see the insane amount of demand and inflation occurring in Toronto's housing market and not a single SFH in my old neighbourhood has been replaced even by a duplex!
 
UrbanWarrior said:
I can't believe how long the bridge is taking. The span isn't even 100 meters and it's already a year behind schedule, and looks nowhere near completion.
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I haven't even seen anyone working on the site in about a year, those floor beams have been there forever. If I remember correctly, I believe it's an issue with the order/delivery of the steel arches.
 
Surrealplaces said:
Here are some pics from the 17th ave changes which broken into 4 zones (zones 1-4). For the most part it looks good, but zone 2 and 3 seem to be missing cycle lanes. Not sure where those went.


top view of Zone 1
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Zone 2 Top View

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Zone 3 Topview



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Zone 4 Topview


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I’m going to read through the city’s literature to find out what happened to the cycle portions in Zone 2 and 3. It’s pointless to have cycle tracks at each end of the stretch but not in the middle 🤨
 
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