Quote:
Originally Posted by DizzyEdge
How politically deadly would drawing a line in the sand as far as permanent city limits be, along with maybe a 100 km green belt around it so development doesn't just go on outside the city limits?
I would support it being set where the city borders would abut the limits of Lake Chestermere, Airdrie, Cochrane, and Okotoks. This way those cities wouldn't be swallowed by Calgary, and the build out wouldn't be for many many years, allowing the city to deal with this eventuality in an orderly fashion without worrying that property values will skyrocket upon the news.
As well, they are already part of the Calgary region so it only makes sense.
I would also politically not announce it as 'we want to limit the city limits', and more 'we are creating a farming reserve around the city' or something of that nature, ie focus on the WHY, rather than the WHAT.
Is there no alternative than infinite growth?
What about something similar, but no greenbelt to the north (so a U shaped green belt) so that any exurban expansion occurs in the Calgary/Red Deer/Edmonton transportation corridor?
Now even a 100 km greenbelt might still cause town outside of it to start growing as they otherwise would not. However I would assume that
a) more people would choose to live in Calgary (ie densify it) than live 100km outside of the city b) even if it did cause growth to far away towns, Calgary itself would still densify faster than if it had been allowed infinite sprawl, achieving one of the two goals (densification and sprawl abatement)
Thoughts?
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I think by drawing those boundaries would cause an explosion in growth for Airdrie, Okotoks et al. I think the goal should be such that suburban development would occur in a more intelligent and sustainable form with more mixed use areas, higher street connectivity, with access to TOD, and greater densities near TOD. The City of Calgary has the option to stop approving the kinds of development that are not sustainable. For example, the City of Calgary recently put the brakes on the Winsport development for not having residential or office uses within the project. First off, I think it's important that the City communicates it's intentions about the kinds of development it wants, second I think it's important that it is discerning about the kinds of developments that gets approved. I think this is a better strategy than have an urban growth boundary.
I don't like the idea of precluding that new suburbs could not be built to a higher level of sustainability than older communities.