City OKs controversial urban design blueprint
Critic says late change 'guts' Plan It Calgary
By Kim Guttormson, Calgary HeraldSeptember 29, 2009 7:51 AM
CALGARY - After lengthy debate, city council approved its ambitious long-term planning and transportation documents Monday, detailing how Calgary will grow in the future -- from the suburbs to major roads and bridges to transit.
"It's a 60-year document," Mayor Dave Bronconnier said of the plans
council backed unanimously. "They will live a long time, be refined over time."
Even last week, unanimous approval of the often-contentious proposals seemed impossible.
A last-minute amendment worked up over the weekend allayed concerns of the development industry and some aldermen around targets for how many people would be living and working per hectare in new areas.
Mike Flynn, of the Urban Development Institute, said the change will allow a better mix of single-family and multi-family homes.
But that same move led some longtime proponents of Plan It Calgary to say it makes the document worthless.
"I believe this one amendment guts that whole thing," said Naheed Nenshi, with the Better Calgary Campaign. "It's no longer worth the paper it's printed on now.
"For everything else in Plan It to work, you need that kind of density on the edges."
The revised Plan It document before council Monday called for a target of 70 people either living or working per developable hectare in new communities, a change from the original recommendation of 70 people living there.
The amendment alters that so initial plans for areas would see a minimum floor of 60, with a goal of 70 by the time it's built out.
Ald. Brian Pincott, who has been involved with the Plan It process even before he was elected to council, said it waters down the document's intent.
"We're (already)doing more than that, doing better than that," he said of the new density targets. "It's hardly, in my mind, moving forward."
Council was told some new communities are already in the range just approved, including Mahogany at 66 and Skyview at 77.
Bronconnier said Plan It still raises the current minimum from seven units per acre to nine.
"It's a new floor and there's no ceiling," he added. "It is a number, but you have to look at the fundamental foundation of the plan, which links in density, diversity of housing type, access to public transit and distance travelled, which is why it's important to link planning and transportation infrastructure."
Pincott said the overall document has a larger impact than just that one component, such as the density targets.
"What's important in the grand scheme of things is to pass a document that talks about growth in our city in total, in a different way," he said. "The important thing is to look at the entire document."
Bronconnier said Calgary will still grow smarter and reduce sprawl under the plans approved Monday.
After public hearings in June, council made almost 100 amendments to the plan, some of which were incorporated into the revised document. Those included removing a call for two specific transit bridges over the rivers and the addition of a tunnel under a future airport runway in the long-term plans.
While those items and the density number drew most of the attention, many pieces--a network of carpool lanes, quadrupling transit service, more trees, more people living close to hospitals, universities and transit stations and improved cycling routes --were embraced.
The long-term plans call for increasing the city's population density by 35 per cent and putting half of new Calgarians into existing neighbourhoods.
kguttormson@theherald. canwest.com
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