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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

everydaytourist.ca

Calgary’s Urban Sprawl: Facing Reality! — Every Day Tourist

The reality is, to attract talent to Calgary means creating a diversity of urban living options from high-rise in the City Centre to master planned suburbs.
everydaytourist.ca everydaytourist.ca

Another Richard White article, endorsed by Terry Wong and others on Twitter.

It's mostly a reiteration of the same ideas that he's posted about many times before. Here are some thoughts:
  • He treats 1 survey statistic (preferred housing type) as the gospel to prescribe what we need to do. This ignores that this preference is simply one among many factors that people weigh when buying a home, and many people may be willing to compromise on it under the right conditions (and depending on what else they value). For example, a family that prefers a single family home might be willing to settle for a townhome if it means they can be closer to their work and the things they care about.
  • He creates a false dichotomy of idealists versus realists - mostly to dismiss the "idealist" side as unrealistic - when we actually need to consider points that both sides are making (yes, we need to keep housing affordable, but we also need to grow in a way that doesn't cost us many billions more in taxpayer dollars over the long term)
The thesis of the article seems to be "there are reasons that things are the way that they are". That doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out. It would be more interesting to ask questions like "what are the long-term consequences of our development patterns" and "what factors and policies cause inner city development to cost so much - and how can we change it?"
 
Last edited:
jhappy77 said:
everydaytourist.ca

Calgary’s Urban Sprawl: Facing Reality! — Every Day Tourist

The reality is, to attract talent to Calgary means creating a diversity of urban living options from high-rise in the City Centre to master planned suburbs.
everydaytourist.ca everydaytourist.ca

Another Richard White article, endorsed by Terry Wong and others on Twitter.

It's mostly a reiteration of the same ideas that he's posted about many times before. Here are some thoughts:
  • He treats 1 survey statistic (preferred housing type) as the gospel to prescribe what we need to do. This ignores that this preference is simply one among many factors that people make when buying a home, and many people may be willing to compromise on it under the right conditions (and depending on what else they value). For example, a family that prefers a single family home might be willing to settle for a townhome if it means they can be closer to their work and the things they care about.
  • He creates a false dichotomy of idealists versus realists - mostly to dismiss the "idealist" side as unrealistic - when we actually need to consider points that both sides are making (yes, we need to keep housing affordable, but we also need to grow in a way that doesn't cost us many billions more in taxpayer dollars over the long term)
The thesis of the article seems to be "there are reasons that things are the way that they are". That doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out. It would be more interesting to ask questions like "what are the long-term consequences of our development patterns" and "what factors and policies cause inner city development to cost so much - and how can we change it?"
Click to expand...
He's also just wrong with data here, 2021 census has Calgary's home ownership at 68.8%, not 72% as his article states (link here). Also renter growth is by far faster growing since at least 2011 (link here).

Of course, we can argue all day about subjective concepts about whether people say they want to rent or own, want to live in a giant house or not etc. - but the actual data shows the trend going the exact opposite to the conclusions of the article for the past decade or longer.

As with all his articles, my other advice is to google SFHs for sale in a few new edge communities before making claims they are exclusively an "affordable" option. Sometimes they might are "cheaper" compared to an inner city straw-man argument house, but that's not the same thing as being particularly "affordable". SFHs in Airdrie are $600 - $800K for example, hardly a steal.

Final point when these type of articles argue that SFH suburbs are always cheaper - you really can't ignore the lifetime costs of 2+ cars per households, which most of these new edge neighbourhoods guarantees by location and design. $500 - 1000 / month average ownership costs in perpetuity on a second car for your home is $80 - $160K on a 25 year mortgage at today's higher interest rates. But if you live there forever, you don't ever actually pay that mortgage off as your vehicle needs to be replaced every decade or two.
 
haltcatchfire said:
Does anyone have any info on what the H-GO and changes to R-CG actually entails in practical bylaw terms?
Click to expand...
Here's the best summary I could find that was one of the attachments to the presentation to Council.

H-GO

Screenshot_20221006_134240.jpg


H-GO <cont>

Screenshot_20221006_134303.jpg


R-CG Changes

Screenshot_20221006_134148.jpg


As noted in a post above, the parking minimums were changed to 0.5 per unit after an amendment by Cllr. Sharp.
 
Nah, that location in particular is 1509 15 AV SW I think. I believe the house that's boarded up in the street view is also gone, and included in the fencing IIRC.
 
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