UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
Finally demoing OSF…
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Just what Eau Claire badly needs, another gravel lot.
The Familia
Active Member
LOL, Eau Clare is such a dump. As soon as the market comes down it will literally be a barren wasteland of parking lots. Will take decades for anything to be built.
FCC1982
Active Member
^And another refreshingly positive post from Familia 
Once the green line station is built, the area around it will develop quickly. So yeah, I guess it could be decades.
outoftheice
Active Member
At the very least, I hope we get a new movie theatre built around the Green Line Station box as some sort of development phase 1, even if the rest of the lot stays vacant for a while.
darwink
Senior Member
I have a Westbrook I’d like to sell you.
The Familia
Active Member
LOL, I would love to be proven wrong and will eat my words if anything happens to these lots within 5-7 years.^And another refreshingly positive post from Familia
I am highly critical of projects because I only want the best for this city. There are tons of projects that I love that have recently gone up (Oliver, NMC, library, Telus Sky (minus their broken LED’s), Brookfield, Evolution in EV, etc.).
My expectations rise even further with public buildings, infrastructure, and legacy buildings (Glenbow, arena, Arts Commons, BMO).
whatchyyc
Active Member
If something doesn't go up above the station box along with Green Line construction good chance it stays a Westbrook dirt lot for 10 years
gsunnyg
Senior Member
NGL I agree with you here. Calgary has had such a slow pace of development since 2014. Given the recent rental vacancy rate, massive immigration numbers, and the historically low-interest rate environment we've experienced, I'm really disappointed in the lack of big residential projects taking off or even being proposed. It's hard to see empty wasteland or parking lots just sitting there for years in some of the most premium spots. In comparison to metro cities like Vancouver, where it feels like a new hole is being dug up every day for 4+ storey development, Calgary is just developing way too slowly. Plus, it's not like metro Vancouver is growing in population a whole bunch more than Calgary if we dig into the StatsCan data. And on top, the disparity between population growth and housing starts is starting to give me unaffordability anxiety. We need more attractive multi-residential real estate policies so decade-long dead zones like Westbrook don't continue to happen.
Golfing guy
Active Member
Hard to compare Vancouver and Calgary. They have a large multi family building boom in the inner city, where Cagary is going crazy on greenfield projects. The amount of single and multi family projects in the burbs is just crazy. So Apples 
vs Oranges 
vs Oranges
That seems to be the case. Calgary CMA in 2022 had 17,306 housing starts and Vancouver CMA had 25,983 housing which falls in line approximately to the population growth of the two cities. 44% (7,700) of the housing starts in Calgary were apartment style, but so many are greenfield projects, the landscape doesn't look like it does with Vancouver and it's millions of highrises u/c. Of Vancouver's 25,938 starts last year, 74% (19,288) were apartment style, with a high number of that in established neighborhoods.Hard to compare Vancouver and Calgary. They have a large multi family building boom in the inner city, where Cagary is going crazy on greenfield projects. The amount of single and multi family projects in the burbs is just crazy. So Apples
Housing Market Information Portal
The housing data you want, the way you want it.
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UrbanWarrior
Senior Member
New proposal, across Macleod from Alpha House. Love to see buildings of this scale proposed in the Beltline.
gsunnyg
Senior Member
I'm considering our recent population trends which point to greater population growth for our CMA in comparison to Vancouver's. From Jan 2022 to Jan 2023, we've added an estimated 40.5K people versus 30.1k in Vancouver, above the age of 15. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-607-x/71-607-x2017001-eng.htmThat seems to be the case. Calgary CMA in 2022 had 17,306 housing starts and Vancouver CMA had 25,983 housing which falls in line approximately to the population growth of the two cities. 44% (7,700) of the housing starts in Calgary were apartment style, but so many are greenfield projects, the landscape doesn't look like it does with Vancouver and it's millions of highrises u/c. Of Vancouver's 25,938 starts last year, 74% (19,288) were apartment style, with a high number of that in established neighborhoods.
Housing Market Information Portal
The housing data you want, the way you want it.www03.cmhc-schl.gc.ca
Moreover, if we go back to historical data, Alberta has yet to reach its peak unit housing starts from 2014 and prior. Meanwhile, both Ontario and BC continue to constantly set new benchmarks in housing starts every couple years. https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/dashboard/housing-starts/#
Sure we have a lot of Greenfield development, but it's just generally a very depressing state at the rate our development is taking place in established areas. The only area intensifications I've been impressed with over the past few years are Bridgleand and University District. Everything else seems to be either developed sparsely across different areas or lays a wasteland or parking lot. Crazy to think we'll be touching 2 million Metro in just over a decade or so. Talking more and more with people over the years, especially some of my buddies who do infills, I really do think we have a lot of red tape that deters development.
