WHY IS THIS ISSUE IMPORTANT?
About
The 5.6 acres of parkland at Glenmore Landing deserves to be preserved. Our city has fought historically to ensure large scale development does not sit at our Glenmore Reservoir, yet RioCan's development threatens the protection of not just parkland, but the trust between residents and the City of Calgary. We cannot as good stewards of the environment allow for development to come at any cost.
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Click below on the different topics to learn more about the specific issues at hand.
ENVIRONMENT
RioCan's proposal greatly threatens not just habitat loss through construction and overuse of the park, but also it hinders migration pattens for wildlife. Our urban trees will be at a loss and pollution will increase. There's extensive environmental concern due to this project. It's important that our city prioritizes our biodiversity in order to meet it's climate objectives for 2050. Read more about these extensive issues...
HISTORY + Legal
The parklands on 90th Ave and 14th St SW were meant to be protected lands from development and this was placed on their land title. Historically corporations have tried to densify these particular parklands and the City of Calgary vehemently fought it. We need to continue protecting Glenmore parklands especially as parkland is scarcer than ever. Read more about the history of these lands...
Infrastructure
There's numerous infrastructure issues and without the proper assessments done prior to the disposition of parkland, the City of Calgary is putting the cart before the horse. We need thorough reporting that's transparent to the public and shows that our City of Calgary officials are accountable to residents. Read more about our concerns on infrastructure...
Planning + Community
Smart city planning is imperative in producing thriving, robust, and resilient communities. Historically Area Redevelopment Plans/Local Area Plans were the city's guide to redeveloping established communities in order to balance the future needs of the city along with community input to ensure community needs were met. This area in particular does not have an ARP or LAP which would ensure the city works alongside residents. Click to learn more about why this is important...
quick facts
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There’s 5.6 Acres of parkland for sale - see History doc for break down on this land
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There’s 10.4 acres of land for the existing plaza that RioCan owns
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The RioCan land-use application states that in the first, second, and third phase there will be 1,248 residential units (4-storey towers at 25 storeys, reduced from 36 to look like they’re working with the community yet their renderings never showed 36)
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13 structures in total and 15 years of construction since they’re building in numerous phases - the existing plaza is looking to be rezoned at 20 storeys for the other 9 buildings
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Plus there’s intensified commercial development resulting in an additional 3,000 residents and employees living and working on the parkland site.Additionally, RioCan proposes two additional residential towers and three additional multi-use buildings up to 20 storeys: basically, a commercial pedestal with residential and office buildings above with underground parking. We believe using the city’s metric for density with the number of units RioCan is proposing and the heights provided, we’re looking at a minimum of 6,000 people
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No transparency from RioCan about their traffic assessment, preliminary environmental assessment (except they claim no biodiversity will be harmed), and their rental housing proposal​
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The only thing we know for the rental is that it will be less than 10 percent according to RioCan, we don’t know if this is for a 5 year term, 10 year term, but we know it goes back to market housing after that and defeats the purpose of creating “affordable housing”
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These will be luxury towers since they have waterfront and mountain views with instant access to the park, this does not help our city’s initiative for affordable housing
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There’s no LAP (local area planning) for this area, the community associations have been asking for one for the past 10 years and the city’s response is now isn’t the time
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This project must have been underway 2013 or 2014 as the BRT (Bus Rapid Transit line) began in 2015 and was built for this proposal
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RioCan states the current business will stay, but there’s no agreement in place and the businesses suffered greatly there when the BRT line was put in, they won’t survive construction
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The parkland has already been deemed “surplus” by council back in 2015
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The Infrastructure and Planning Committee meets on January 10th, 2024 for the disposition of parkland where the public can participate - see home page
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The disposition of the parkland is January 30th, 2024 when council meets to vote
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The application of the redesignation will follow, we don’t have a timeline yet