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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Could be wrong but I think this might be going ahead in Currie, I believe there is a crane on site: https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2020-6905

Currie.JPG


Would be great to see something happen here. This area between the community and Crowchild is a blackhole devoid of anything!

I do also see this when looking: https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2021-8253
Would be a nice addition and change of use to a "Outdoor Cafe, Restaurant: Licensed - Medium, Brewery, Winery and Distillery (exterior decorative canopy)"

I live just across Crowchild in Garrison and walk over to Wildrose in the summer which is always very busy so you can't tell me more can't be done with this. The reserve military base is a slight problem but throw a little small-business park in there and I think it would do fine, close to roads, some transit via the BRT. MRU and some other businesses in that mini business park are right there, not to mention communities with tons of infill and families with disposable income. Add some more atmosphere in there with Wildrose and you'd have something. 33rd is a nightmare to get in and out of, design this well and people will come. If you build it they will come.
 
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Could be wrong but I think this might be going ahead in Currie, I believe there is a crane on site: https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2020-6905

View attachment 375424

Would be great to see something happen here. This area between the community and Crowchild is a blackhole devoid of anything!

I do also see this when looking: https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2021-8253
Would be a nice addition and change of use to a "Outdoor Cafe, Restaurant: Licensed - Medium, Brewery, Winery and Distillery (exterior decorative canopy)"

I live just across Crowchild in Garrison and walk over to Wildrose in the summer which is always very busy so you can't tell me more can't be done with this. The reserve military base is a slight problem but throw a little small-business park in there and I think it would do fine, close to roads, some transit via the BRT. MRU and some other businesses in that mini business park are right there, not to mention communities with tons of infill and families with disposable income. Add some more atmosphere in there with Wildrose and you'd have something. 33rd is a nightmare to get in and out of, design this well and people will come. If you build it they will come.
You're not wrong, that one is indeed under construction. This is the project
 

Active ‘Missing Middle’ Housing Development Applications in Marda Loop​


Event on January 19th.
A lot of opposition to these developments during last night's virtual open house. Lot's of vitriol. Not sure if people are more opposed to these styles of developments, or to 5-6 story condos. Honestly, aside from the lack of parking, and therefor increased street parking (I maintain that the City needs to increase the number of permitted zones) and maybe the challenges of dealing with waste bins for 10 units where there was 1 home, or 21 units where there were 2 homes, I don't have a problem with these proposals. I think I'd still prefer the 5-6 story condo along 33 Ave SW, but appreciate that the market might be soft for condos in the neighbourhood.
 
A lot of opposition to these developments during last night's virtual open house. Lot's of vitriol. Not sure if people are more opposed to these styles of developments, or to 5-6 story condos. Honestly, aside from the lack of parking, and therefor increased street parking (I maintain that the City needs to increase the number of permitted zones) and maybe the challenges of dealing with waste bins for 10 units where there was 1 home, or 21 units where there were 2 homes, I don't have a problem with these proposals. I think I'd still prefer the 5-6 story condo along 33 Ave SW, but appreciate that the market might be soft for condos in the neighbourhood.
As a new resident of Garrison Woods in the past year I can tell you the barrier to entry in this area (Marda Loop, Altadore, Garrison, etc) is very high. If this lowers that, all the power to it. Some diversity of people and incomes living in the area should do nothing but help the vibrancy of the area and 33rd specifically. As for parking, that's going to be an ongoing battle. In Garrison, where I know people have lane garages, the street is still practically full of cars. If you have a car for every driving-age person in your house you're probably going to be upset about losing some street parking. This area has pretty decent transit (could be better with a street car... see my other posts for that ha) but I do think you do still need access to a car is this city to be productive. Until I can get to the industrial park in the SE in less than 30 minutes via transit I'll need a car for work.
 
New submission here for this site, at least I think its new? https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2022-00288

Since 8th St is now a dead end i wonder how this changes things... The view to the west from this site should change a lot over the next 10 to 15 years you could end up staring at another building across the river where the bus barn is now but it would be nice to be right on the river.
 
New submission here for this site, at least I think its new? https://developmentmap.calgary.ca/?find=DP2022-00288

Since 8th St is now a dead end i wonder how this changes things... The view to the west from this site should change a lot over the next 10 to 15 years you could end up staring at another building across the river where the bus barn is now but it would be nice to be right on the river.
It's this one:
rivers-edge-jpg.107362


And the forum discussion is here:

River's Edge | m | 6s | Torode | Norr

 
A lot of opposition to these developments during last night's virtual open house. Lot's of vitriol. Not sure if people are more opposed to these styles of developments, or to 5-6 story condos. Honestly, aside from the lack of parking, and therefor increased street parking (I maintain that the City needs to increase the number of permitted zones) and maybe the challenges of dealing with waste bins for 10 units where there was 1 home, or 21 units where there were 2 homes, I don't have a problem with these proposals. I think I'd still prefer the 5-6 story condo along 33 Ave SW, but appreciate that the market might be soft for condos in the neighbourhood.
I'd be totally for expansion of the street-parking zones and general reform of how we allocate that space in general. Outside of a few streets and communities in the centre city, our street parking systems has no logic to it and is under-priced allowing everyone free access to a scare resource. It's not efficient or fair that there's no cost for someone's first two vehicles to park on the street, regardless of how big they are. This should be changed everywhere, including Marda Loop area.

More broadly, the Marda Loop area is probably the first (and arguably only) of the early suburban communities that actually has densified enough to see materially noticeable growth of a thriving pedestrian-scale retail cluster.

This highlights two things:
  1. Most of our early suburbs have always and remain way under-populated to sustain critical neighbourhood amenities like retail through local traffic.
  2. You really need *a lot* - as in several multiples - more housing to make up the difference from such a low baseline that most of inner Calgary was built on.
Here's a crude graph of density for some of the popular areas. ML is definitely getting denser, but it's only now approaching 1970s-era Beltline:

1642806729876.png


The unfortunate thing about the vitrol against these types of mid-density projects, is the homes being built are really the exact right scale and price point for many families to access the area and it's growing amenities, despite the area's high prices. As usual, the opposition against these projects is usually from the groups that benefit the most from restricting new home supply - current homeowners in the area.

Of course there's the technical stuff to sort out to make everyone's lives a bit easier in new forms of housing we don't have a ton of experience with (e.g. 21 recycling bins for 21 units v. 1 shared garbage, a more logical user-pay street parking system etc.) but those will come with time. But the solution isn't to prevent the housing in the first place, otherwise Marda Loop will transition to just another wealthy, calcified and stagnant Mount Royal in 20 - 30 years.
 
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None. Designs and materials are great until everyone and their brother does a million cheap knockoffs of it and completely takes away from what made it great. Case and point Mies van der Rohe's TD Square in Toronto, great for it's time but it's been copied a million times and is now kinda just boring. Architecture is just too trendy nowadays, just look at all the buildings going up all over the place with a yellow box sticking out the side of it.
Australia 101 where you at?
 
I use the map on the site to look for projects. Definitely not the best way to look.
Do you mean the map function from SRC? I find the map function generally works well, but there are sometimes projects missing. If you run across something missing, let the mods know and they will add the site to the map.
 

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