Growth outpaces services
Jamie Komarnicki, Calgary Herald
Published: Thursday, September 27, 2007
Today, the Herald begins its series of ward profiles, which outline the candidates and explore issues that make the communities distinct.
Today: Ward 1
Friday: Ward 2
- - -
Day and night, Duane Page hears cars revving recklessly down the street outside his Tuscany home.
Residents of the fast-growing northwest community were thrilled when their new elementary school opened this January, but they didn't anticipate the slew of speeders ignoring the school zone limits on their streets.
"We don't want to wait until somebody gets hurt before we do anything," said Page, who lives across from Tuscany Elementary School and launched a campaign, putting up signs and handing out flyers, urging drivers to slow down.
Page isn't the only one worried -- the local community association marks speeding as one of its top concerns.
But traffic woes are just one of the issues dogging the northwest corner of the city, which saw a huge influx of residents trekking to the suburbs in the past decade.
The area has seen continued growth, with nearly 14,000 new residents since the last civic election in 2004.
Work has begun on a massive project approved by council in April 2005 to widen Crowchild Trail and extend the northwest LRT to help ease transit in the area.
Newcomers looking to set down roots are grappling with the crunch for city services that comes with such rapid growth.
Transportation, schools and a regional leisure centre are some of the chief issues in Ward 1.
"Just getting adequate coverage across the whole area is an interesting challenge," said Calgary's longest serving alderman, Dale Hodges, who is seeking his ninth term representing the sweeping ward.
With 24 years as alderman on his resume, Hodges says he's a dependable voice for the ward and has insight into council's agenda.
He cruised to victory in 2004, easily outpacing lone challenger Normand Perrault, who is back on the ballot this year.
But after nearly a quarter of a century with the same representative, candidates Perrault, a retired general contractor, and Jennifer Banks, a social worker, are hoping to shake things up.
And not just in the suburbs. Coffee-shop talk in the communities centres around a slate of new issues in the ward's mixed bag of neighbourhoods, residents say.
Students clustered around the University of Calgary are struggling for housing in a city where vacancy rates hover below one per cent -- and city council is deadlocked on legalizing secondary suites.
And a business renaissance is creating buzz in historic Bowness, the independent area annexed by Calgary in 1963, as locals lobby to brand the neighbourhood as a mountain town within the big city.
In the past five years, Alex Solano, owner of Salt & Pepper Mexican Restaurante, said he's watched several new businesses come and go on main street Bowness.
A community known more for crime than creativity in past decades, Bowness has seen young, professional couples moving into the neighbourhood, he said.
Unlike its newer counterparts in Ward 1, Bowness isn't lacking in schools and social services, but Solano says he's worried about resistance to the urban redevelopment that might block his neighbourhood's growth.
"There are really artistic, imaginative people who'd like to do something really cool in Bowness, but they're just getting, 'No, no, no, this is how we do it. It's the traditional way,' " said Solano, who added he'd like to see more commercial and residential mixed use and an easing of single-family residential zoning.
Despite the diversity of the ward, it's parents weary of carting children around to various sporting events across the city who have crafted the cause that all candidates are eager to champion: building a regional leisure centre in the northwest.
"I think people recognize that having a recreational centre in your community is a great way to meet your neighbours, to cut down your time transporting your kids around," Banks said.
Newer areas such as Tuscany are hit especially hard by the lack of a sports facility, Perrault said.
Suburban isolation has started setting in for some northwest residents longing for their own recreation centre.
But members of the Tuscany Community Association are holding their breath today, hoping for a promise from Hodges and Dave Bronconnier, who's running a mayoral re-election campaign, about the coveted facility.
"There's only one thing that I want to hear," said William Thompson, the association's president.
"Our hopes are that . . . they will announce funding for new recreational centres, because the northwest is sort of void as far as recreation centres, and that obviously they'll put us into a position to get a facility with that money."
Still, as the newer communities settle in, their young populations are growing as well, Thompson said. And that puts a whole host of new concerns -- middle schools and high schools, crime control, roads development -- on the wish list for the coming term, he said.
jkomarnicki@theherald.canwest.com
At a Glance: Ward 1
Candidates
- Jennifer Banks
Age: 35
Occupation: Social worker
Marital status: Lives with partner
- Dale Hodges
Age: 66
Occupation: Served as alderman since 1983
Marital status: Married, no kids
- Normand Perrault
Age: 57
Occupation: Retired general contractor
Marital status: Divorced, three sons
Profile
Population: 89,576
Change since 2004: +13,951
Number of seniors (over 65): 8,169*
Number of children and youth (under 20): 21,264*
Number of occupied dwellings: 34,060
Home ownership: 26,423 (77.6 per cent)
Communities in ward: Bowness, Cougar Ridge, Crestmont, Greenwood- Greenbriar, Montgomery, Rocky Ridge, Royal Oak, Scenic Acres, Silver Springs, Tuscany, University Heights, University of Calgary, Valley Ridge and Varsity.
Source: 2007 Civic Census
* Based on 2006 numbers (some ward boundaries changed in 2007)
Online Extras
Visit our website for more civic election coverage, including more about Ward 1 and the opinions of the candidates running for alderman.
CalgaryHerald.com
Prev
What the sweet &^!@#& do marital status and number of children have to do with ANYTHING?
Linear Mode
