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Mayor Nenshi and the Calgary Metropolitan Plan

I’m sure many of the members of the Calgary Regional Partnership (CRP) have been waiting nervously to see how Mayor Naheed Nenshi is going to proceed with implementation of the Calgary Metropolitan Plan. I was following His Worship on Twitter on Friday, June 17 as he attended the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association’s Mayor’s Caucus in Calgary and tweeted about regional planning. Here’s the conversation that resulted via Twitter:

[View the story “Mayor Nenshi: Regional Planning” on Storify]

It’s disappointing that the Mayor declared my tweet about the density targets as a misrepresentation. The numbers I quoted were correct. The densities for the compact urban nodes in areas like DeWinton, Balzac and Bearspaw are set at a minimum of 8-10 units/per acre (with a preference for higher densities). I had tweeted 10-12, which is a minor discrepancy. These are the numbers that were originally proposed–I forgot that they had dropped it down to 8-10. But no matter how you look at it, these are at least five times (and in some cases more than 10 times) the densities that are currently found in some of the rural areas that have been singled out to be transformed into “compact urban nodes” or as the locals like to call them, “the blue blobs” (referring to the original blue areas presented to the public during the “consultation” phase). See this map for the exact location of the these clusters of high density housing that the CRP wants to build just outside the City’s boundaries . The bottom line is, these blue blobs are on the outskirts of the city and are based on transit lines coming out to the communities.

The money for those transit lines has to come at least partially from the provincial government. I haven’t seen much funding coming from the provincial government recently for regional transit services. There has been a trickle of dollars to some communities, but the problem is that the houses will be built first and those homeowners will be commuting into Calgary on city roads and at great cost to the infrastructure, not to mention the environment. The sprawl will continue with transit service promised to offset the strain on City of Calgary roads (and on the City’s taxpayers) but the blame laid on the provincial government for not coming through with the dollars. Even if they do fund major transit lines to the urban nodes in areas like Okotoks and Airdrie, the jury is still out in the planning community as to whether this is good practice.

According to Mayor Nenshi, the density requirements apply to only some of the blue blobs. If this is the case, it is certainly not what was communicated during the public consultation. The message was clear–these densities apply to all of the compact urban nodes and have already taken effect in most of the communities that signed on. Even though the plan looks out over the next 60 years, municipalities must immediately begin aligning with the Calgary Metropolitan Plan, which is part of the regional planning and Land Use Framework. The penalties for non-compliance are quite significant and discussed in the Alberta Land Stewardship Act. This is the same Act that has raised the ire of many Albertans for its heavy-handedness and which was only slightly amended under extreme pressure from the Wildrose Alliance Party recently. The reality is that any new municipal development plans have to conform to the new regional plans or the municipality faces financial penalties.

On density: The David Suzuki Foundation

“Density is often used as an excuse for more development. Increasing density within city areas that already have development can work to minimize a city’s footprint. Developing areas where there is little or no existing development is nothing more than sprawl.”

Panos Grames, The David Suzuki Foundation