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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

What is the point of having this engagement starting now? The core element of the design is already signed into an agreement. Seems like a useless "we listened" gesture.

engage.calgary.ca

Cowboys Park

In early March, The City will begin work to transform Cowboys Park into a more modern and multi-functional event space in Calgary’s downtown.
engage.calgary.ca engage.calgary.ca
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trtcttc said:
What is the point of having this engagement starting now? The core element of the design is already signed into an agreement. Seems like a useless "we listened" gesture.

engage.calgary.ca

Cowboys Park

In early March, The City will begin work to transform Cowboys Park into a more modern and multi-functional event space in Calgary’s downtown.
engage.calgary.ca engage.calgary.ca
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Processes are followed unless they're directed not to.
 
darwink said:
"The Court of King’s Bench recently ruled that CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC’s termination of its lease of Nexen Tower in Calgary was unjustified"

www.bennettjones.com

Bennett Jones Litigation Team Wins Major Claim Against China National Offshore Oil Corporation

On March 14, 2025, the Court of King’s Bench released its judgment in CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC v 801 Seventh Inc. After discovering small concentrations of an asbestos-containing
www.bennettjones.com www.bennettjones.com
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This and the fact they're getting a new tenant, good time to hold this property... After years of endless bad times.
 
thecivilengineer said:
newsroom.calgary.ca

City of Calgary and cSPACE partner to revitalize historic buildings into vibrant arts and culture hub

The City of Calgary and cSPACE Projects have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to explore transforming two historic downtown buildings into a new arts and culture hub. The City and cSPACE are collaborating to find new uses for the Historic Fire Hall No. 1 (140 6 Avenue S.E.) and the...
newsroom.calgary.ca newsroom.calgary.ca
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Love it. cSPACE MardaLoop is fantastic. If they can do more of the same with those great historic buildings downtown, this is a big win.
 
Interesting read. For the new developments that need city capital, what actual costs are the city responsible for?
livewirecalgary.com

'It's still a beauty contest': Some new Calgary communities move ahead - LiveWire Calgary

Calgary’s once-revamped process for new growth approvals isn’t panning out as expected, according to one councillor, as her colleagues continue to debate incoming applications despite admin recommendations. The Infrastructure and Planning Committee (IPC) reviewed five new growth applications...
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com
 
Golfing guy said:
Interesting read. For the new developments that need city capital, what actual costs are the city responsible for?
livewirecalgary.com

'It's still a beauty contest': Some new Calgary communities move ahead - LiveWire Calgary

Calgary’s once-revamped process for new growth approvals isn’t panning out as expected, according to one councillor, as her colleagues continue to debate incoming applications despite admin recommendations. The Infrastructure and Planning Committee (IPC) reviewed five new growth applications...
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com
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Short answer: there is a cost sharing calculation that splits the costs between developers and the city.

Longer answer: The city is responsible for the share of the infrastructure deemed to have citywide benefit while the developers are responsible for the local infrastructure and the proportion of the infrastructure they benefit from.

Really long answer: The devil is of course, in the details. Defining "local" and "citywide" is difficult and negotiated, getting into the weeds of things like the size of a pipe or the classification of a road being cost-shared differently. Then there is the cumulative impact - for example, my new neighbourhood doesn't need any new upgrades to a water treatment plant itself, however the cumulative impact of all the new neighbourhoods means we need a new water treatment plant. There's then a big negotiation and formula allocate some of those water treatment expansion costs to each new development, but some cost isn't allocated as the public also benefits at-large from a newer treatment plant. For some things, location matters - so some areas are charged more than others because they need more infrastructure than others.

Finally, there's the financing costs of all this - city typically fronts the money for all this infrastructure, so everyone can benefit from the lower interest rates the city can get. The city then pays back that loan with the levies it collects once the development actually occurs. Works fine until there's development delays or changing economic conditions - that payback period can get delayed, incurring higher debt charges publicly.

All this means politics, lobbying and lots of interests forever in negotiation as we are talking hundreds of millions, even billions, of dollars annually for both public and private players in this.
 
Golfing guy said:
Interesting read. For the new developments that need city capital, what actual costs are the city responsible for?
livewirecalgary.com

'It's still a beauty contest': Some new Calgary communities move ahead - LiveWire Calgary

Calgary’s once-revamped process for new growth approvals isn’t panning out as expected, according to one councillor, as her colleagues continue to debate incoming applications despite admin recommendations. The Infrastructure and Planning Committee (IPC) reviewed five new growth applications...
livewirecalgary.com livewirecalgary.com
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Some of those infrastructure investment amounts...

West View $102.6 million investment required.
East segment of one of the Glacier Ridge got approved (I think) but they putting off the rest of it to a future date because of $142 million city investment required.
The other Glacier Ridge would trigger the addition of a new $22 million emergency services building.

So $266.6 million would need to spent by the city for these communities to even begin construction.

It would, eventually, lead to 18,000 new boundary-area Calgary homes and thus people paying city taxes but damn that is a decade plus from being realized. Meaning, if I'm thinking about this correctly, property taxes in this area don't actually start to go towards other city services for awhile. I know there are some development levies but we've discussed how those and property taxes take awhile to pay back the City for what they put in.

I know we know building in established areas is better, as this isn't a suburban development forum but when I sit down and think about it still gets to me.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
Some of those infrastructure investment amounts...

West View $102.6 million investment required.
East segment of one of the Glacier Ridge got approved (I think) but they putting off the rest of it to a future date because of $142 million city investment required.
The other Glacier Ridge would trigger the addition of a new $22 million emergency services building.

So $266.6 million would need to spent by the city for these communities to even begin construction.

It would, eventually, lead to 18,000 new boundary-area Calgary homes and thus people paying city taxes but damn that is a decade plus from being realized. Meaning, if I'm thinking about this correctly, property taxes in this area don't actually start to go towards other city services for awhile. I know there are some development levies but we've discussed how those and property taxes take awhile to pay back the City for what they put in.

I know we know building in established areas is better, as this isn't a suburban development forum but when I sit down and think about it still gets to me.
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It's part of the reason density is the suburbs have increased so dramatically - it's so expensive to build out there, density is required to go up to help pay for all the new stuff while keeping housing accessibly priced.

In eras of cheaper land and greater public subsidy of suburban growth, the density could be lower and the financial math still worked (because the developer and the subsequent homeowner was never really expected to pay for even the local infrastructure entirely).

That's not to say redevelopment growth is free - any form of growth comes with costs and impacts, it's just building new regional-scale roads and pipes needed for brand new areas is so expensive, incremental redevelopment is often effectively "free" in comparison. This is notably most true in areas where we built for neighbourhoods for 30 toilet flushes per day per house (a family of 5) but only see 10 flushes a day per house (a single or senior with no kids at home). Replace that old house with 3 townhomes and it possible you won't need any new infrastructure at all.

Situation gets more complicated for more significant redevelopment density increases where infrastructure demand exceeds the existing built capacity, but even this style of development benefits from proximity to reduce costs - connected or upgraded a major pipe that's only 20m from a development is going to cost a lot less than building 2km of new major pipe in the suburbs.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
property taxes in this area don't actually start to go towards other city services for awhile
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Some communities, never. Unfortunately, fire service is so expensive, that if the community road layout/connectivity with neighbours is poor, the community likely never recovers from the original year over year accumulate deficit from initial fire service.
 
I'll also call out that reading between the lines... Suburban councillors likely get an outsized amount of financial support from suburban developers. Not that urban ones don't get some from infill and condo developers but why else would councillors be pushing so hard for these communities.
 
CalgaryTiger said:
I'll also call out that reading between the lines... Suburban councillors likely get an outsized amount of financial support from suburban developers. Not that urban ones don't get some from infill and condo developers but why else would councillors be pushing so hard for these communities.
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True - because of the negotiation component. The math is complex and multi-variable to estimate the costs, let alone argue the "fair" distribution of who should pay for what. It is linked into all the countless debates on standards and rules about development and services (e.g. parking requirements, setbacks, right-of-way widths, what is the acceptable distance from a fire stations etc.) Even transportation standards and models impact it. For example, if we accept a different higher level of congestion as okay - we won't trigger the "need" for as many or as large of suburban arterial roads, thus lowering the cost of suburban development. It's a design choice with pros/cons that impact all of this.

Because it's so complex and muddled with so many technical conversations, it will always be debated. Politicians will never have the technical expertise to understand the nuances and therefore are subject to lobbying. This leaves a permanent incentive by suburban developers to advocate for their view of how costs should be allocated.

The politics are so important in this that it can be argued that's its actually better defined as political problem first, with infrastructure is only being the secondary issue. For example, in other cities where they have ran out of room in the city boundary for bare land growth, the political conversation doesn't exist on sprawl at all, the cities only focus on redevelopment cost triggers and allocation. This is Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal's development world view.

Calgary does both greenfield and redevelopment types of growth and therefore has the politics of both types of growth simultaneously. If Calgary stopped annexing lands and ran out of new growth in the burbs, we'd obviously only care about redevelopment too.
 
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