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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

outoftheice said:
I wonder if we're going to see that as the Cowboys Stampede tent or if Covid finally killed Cowboys? Pennylane Entertainment owns the nightclub but to my knowledge the nightclub hasn't re-opened and last Stampede they didn't have the Cowboys tent. Love it or hate it, Pennylane shuttering the nightclub and ditching the branding would be the death of a Calgary institution that was well known by people outside our city (I've traveled to England and people I met there knew about the mountains, Banff and Cowboys when I mentioned I was from Calgary). Curious to see what happens.
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Looks like the Cowboys Tent is still happening:
 
So this is a thing - the houses on the corner of 27th Ave SW and Erlton St. are coming down. I’ll be sad to see all those trees go

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Calgcouver said:
I am of the opinion that Richard White has aged out of providing interesting commentary on city-building, at least in my opinion over the last number of things I have read from him. He is just such a booster of the status quo for Calgary (excessive automobility, sterility, etc.) and I just feel he's talking about a Calgary that may have been interesting 15-20 years ago. I would prefer to see regular columns and material that are more forward-thinking regarding Calgary's changing urbanity that have a more critical lens of changes that we could make to improve the City, as opposed to just endless boosterism for the lackluster status quo that is routinely compromising in urban design and actual vibrancy. I used to enjoy his writing more a number of years ago when he was making more interesting comparisons between Calgary and other places he had travelled, my two cents not trying to be harsh.

I just couldn't disagree more with his take-aways at this point. In his Copenhagen v. Calgary article he uses West Village Towers as a shining example of urbanity, talks about how Calgary doesn't have a problem with automobile-dependent sprawl and comes to this conclusion:
View attachment 388676

I can't think of a worse conclusion to draw than saying Calgary should not try to be more like a place like Copenhagen. The culture of excessive automobility, sprawl and a complete lack of paying attention to the details in terms of urban design is what Calgary should put the blinders on and continue to replicate? Why don't you learn from your experiences travelling and try to bring good ideas to Calgary to solve some of our problems that are not unique to us. He just is defending and boosting up the the largely indefensible status quo of development and urban design in Calgary and I don't find that interesting or thoughtful to read anymore.
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Agreed. True, Calgary needs to evolve in its own way, but why not take the best aspects of different cities around the world to form the city, right?
We didn’t do that back in the 70’s and 80’s etc and what did we get? Boatloads of suburbs laced with beige siding and stucco, and a pile of boring boxy office towers.

Thankfully it’s turned around, no thanks to people like Richard White.
 
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livewirecalgary.com

Calgary committee waives fees, makes design changes to seasonal patio program - LiveWire Calgary

Changes to the city’s seasonal patio program would ensure improved accessibility along Calgary sidewalks. The proposed changes were delivered to the city’s infrastructure and planning committee Thursday, in advance of the upcoming outdoor patio season. An amendment to the proposal waived the...
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com

Patios taking up parking spaces and its approved by the city?! Brace yourselves, more surface parking coming.
 
My response to that is, more surface parking is already coming… at 4th and 11th. So…. lets DO THIS!


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From the article:
Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong asked about potential measures to avoid hazards that may come with the level crossing and sidewalk split.

Wong was concerned about the safety of servers and other staff as they integrated with crossing pedestrians.

“They’re concerned that they may walk into pedestrians and spill a bowl of soup on them,” he said.
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What an embarrassment. Every restaurant I've ever been to is... filled with pedestrians, walking to and from their seats, to and from the bathrooms, to and from serving tables. How do we elect such provincial dunces?

Actual support of pedestrians and street life can have places like this:
rambla-de-catalunya(1).png


Note that the dining in the middle of the pedestrian space doesn't have kitchens; the food is being prepared in restaurants in the buildings on either side of the street, then carried across a sidewalk, across a lane of car traffic, and in many cases across the pedestrian corridor in the middle of the street (if coming from the green-awning building on the right) before it gets to the diners.

Which actually looks like this:
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And, since it's Barcelona, the food is also amazing -- not that we don't have a ton of great places here.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
From the article:


What an embarrassment. Every restaurant I've ever been to is... filled with pedestrians, walking to and from their seats, to and from the bathrooms, to and from serving tables. How do we elect such provincial dunces?

Actual support of pedestrians and street life can have places like this:
View attachment 389219

Note that the dining in the middle of the pedestrian space doesn't have kitchens; the food is being prepared in restaurants in the buildings on either side of the street, then carried across a sidewalk, across a lane of car traffic, and in many cases across the pedestrian corridor in the middle of the street (if coming from the green-awning building on the right) before it gets to the diners.

Which actually looks like this:
View attachment 389221

And, since it's Barcelona, the food is also amazing -- not that we don't have a ton of great places here.
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Surrealplaces said:
I was thinking the same thing. Patios where the servers have to cross the sidewalks, wide paths, or roads are world-wide and have been around forever.
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So you could say, "Wong is Wrong"...

Imagine this: Its 2040 you get off the Greenline (or train from Banff after a day of skiing, yeah its winter), walk to 9th Ave (which now looks like this ^), and you order a Caesar (Calgary created) and Calamari (my favourite appetizer). You sit back in your chair and laugh as you remember when it all started to change that one day a councilour was worried about servers spilling hot soup on people on the sidewalk.
 
ByeByeBaby said:
From the article:

Ward 7 Coun. Terry Wong asked about potential measures to avoid hazards that may come with the level crossing and sidewalk split.

Wong was concerned about the safety of servers and other staff as they integrated with crossing pedestrians.

“They’re concerned that they may walk into pedestrians and spill a bowl of soup on them,” he said.
Click to expand...
I mean .... as my nearly weekly sidewalk rants try to highlight, we seem to be totally cool with pedestrians integrating with all the other crap left in the sidewalk right-of-way for years and don't do anything about any of it - construction signs, duplicative and unnecessary poles, temporary signs, drain gates, weird curb cuts, signal control boxes, poor condition pavement, sloped sidewalks for driveways, unenforced snow-clearing rules, dangerous slip lanes, completely random driver behaviours about yielding to pedestrians etc. etc.

So yeah... I think we can handle a few servers walking across the sidewalk.

Especially true if we free up the sidewalk space from tables and put them in the road - like most places in the world. Great to see this successful patio program continue to improve!
 
Surrealplaces said:
This is only my opinion, but I think it should be up to the developer. If the developer feels they can sell units in a 100 unit proposal that has only 40 parking spots, let them. Same deal if they want to build 120 parking spaces in a 100 unit building (as long as they're below ground) I think consumer should have the choice. I know 5 people (outside of this forum) who live in the Beltline/Lower Mount Royal and three of them don't have cars.

The argument against developments with limited or no parking is that the residents with cars will take up all the street parking, but there really isn't a convenient way to do that unless you're prepared to continually move your car around. During the day almost all streets are either 2 or 3 hour parking, and half of those are pay spots. After hours most street spots are free, but some aren't free until after 6:00pm, some aren't until after 9:00pm. It means that every day you'd have to arrive home later or go pick up your car, and then come back and try and find a spot near your residence. It's not workable long term, and people with cars will go to a development with parking spaces. Those who don't have a car can chose places without parking, and those in theory should be cheaper.
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I agree. The city doesn’t need to force the number of parking spots for developments in areas where street parking is controlled
 
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