Calgary council gears up for heated debate on city's future
Three-day battle expected on 100 amendments
By Jason Markusoff, Calgary HeraldSeptember 28, 2009 7:33 AM
CALGARY - As council girds for a gruelling debate Monday on what Calgary's new suburbs, existing communities and transit system will look in the future, both the groups wanting a more compact city and those wanting more ability to grow outward are jeering City Hall's latest tweaks to the growth plan.
Many of Plan It Calgary's key proposals for the city's next 60 years, while sweeping, have drawn little debate and are widely embraced: a network of citywide carpool lanes, a quadrupling of the transit service, more trees around town, better cycling routes and building up areas around hospitals, universities and transit stations.
The debate has now intensified between suburban developers and "smart growth" advocates, focused on a new compromise city planners made around how dense new suburbs should be.
Sustainable Calgary society, a lead Plan It booster, argues the looser rules barely push past the status quo and greatly weaken the blueprint's goal of curbing sprawl. The developers' lobby believes even the softer targets may force developers to build far-flung townhouses and condos people won't want to buy.
"If everybody's ticked off with it, doesn't that then make it the perfect document?" Ald. Brian Pincott observed Thursday.
But he also said officials have "watered down" the plan too much and he'll push to get council to restore the original targets for suburbs that haven't yet been planned and won't get built for another 10 to 15 years.
Some aldermen predict a three-day debate on the nearly 100 amendments council members suggested on Plan It, as lengthy as June's marathon public hearing that saw developers and anti-sprawl Calgarians plead their respective cases.
City planners' latest version of Plan It keeps in place all the 60-year targets--such as boosting citywide population density 35 per cent and fitting half of all new Calgarians in densified existing communities -- but took pains to clarify in the plan that change won't be forced immediately and the city targets could alter over time.
However, in new suburban areas, officials softened the target minimum of 70 residents per hectare, a level far denser than the most condo-friendly Calgary suburbs now in planning stages. Instead, the target is 70 residents or jobs, which Mayor Dave Bronconnier and senior officials said will give developers more flexibility how mixed-use a community is.
Already, developers are planning new communities in the far northeast and southeast of Calgary are much denser than surrounding suburbs and meet that Plan It threshold.
While that's angered Plan It's supporters, the development lobby has been making rounds to aldermen's offices to warn them the plan still reaches the wrong balance.
"They're asking us to plan things that the consumer has generally said, 'I'm not prepared to look at neighbourhoods with that kind of density,' " said Dennis Little, chief negotiator for the homebuilding and developer associations.
His language was markedly different from that of Urban Development Institute's Michael Flynn, who this week said that any targets were unacceptable.
"Targets are OK--everybody sets targets in life," Little said Thursday. "The question is how far, how fast and how much."
Ald. Joe Connelly said he'll ask council to remove the targets from the plan altogether, since communities in his ward oppose the call for more density in their midst.
"We do not have an urban sprawl problem. We have a transportation problem... as in people getting to work in their vehicles, and that's what we've got to address," he said.
"I think Calgarians want to know where we are in six years, not 60."
Noel Keough, chairman of Sustainable Calgary, said he's surprised council's fiscal conservatives are rejecting a plan that a city-commissioned study that said a more compact city will cost ratepayers $11.2 billion less Calgary would need to build fewer roads, sewer lines, fire halls and other infrastructure.
The softer target weakens Plan it, but doesn't render it worthless, he said.
"It is worth keeping, but I sincerely hope that they'll reconsider (the compromise) because it weakens the intent, it weakens the spirit and I don't think it's in line what the values that Calgarians have spoken out for," said Keough.
The revised target would actually have less impact on suburban population density than critics charge, said Mary Axworthy, Calgary's director of land-use planning and policy.
It fits well within Plan It's goal of having people live closer to where they work -- a goal that eases carbon emissions and commuting times, she noted.
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I really like articles like this. The economic rationale for Plan-It makes a lot of sense. While I totally support Plan-It, I wonder what would happen if development agreements were adjusted to actually fully cover the costs of infrastructure (including things like arterial upgrades) while simultaneously development agreements and permit processing for inner-city development was streamlined and adjusted to reflect the use of existing infrastructure. I believe the market would turn around overnight. Just speculating though.
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