The HH-BH Area Redevelopment Plan is Being Replaced
Many residents may be familiar with the Hounsfield Heights-Briar Hill Area Redevelopment Plan (HH-BH ARP), a document created by the City in the late 1980s with strong input from local resident volunteers. This document contained a number of recommendations to be implemented in HH-BH (most of which were carried out in the early 1990s) and also set out Land Use, Transportation and Social Planning considerations. At the time this document was envisioned to cover a planning horizon of ten to fifteen years, however the City has not undertaken any meaningful consultation and revision in the past 30 years and as such we now have a planning document that does not fit well with the current methods the City uses for planning and redevelopment.
At the HH-BH Annual General Meeting last November, the Ward 7 Councillor’s office announced the City’s intention to create a new Local Area Plan to replace the current ARP. This new Local Area Plan (LAP) would cover the communities of Hounsfield Height-Briar Hill, West Hillhurst and Hillhurst-Sunnyside. Currently West Hillhurst does not have an ARP, and Hillhurst-Sunnyside has an ARP from the 1980s with a significant Transit Oriented Development (TOD) revision from ten years ago. The City intends to kick-off the engagement process in April, with public awareness and engagement events throughout the three communities until June. For more information on Local Area Plans, visit the City website Calgary.ca/LAP .
This new approach to local planning has started with the North Hill Communities Local Growth Planning pilot project. This covers the communities of: Highland Park, Mount Pleasant, Tuxedo Park, Winston Heights-Mountview, Crescent Heights, Renfrew, Rosedale, Capitol Hill and Thorncliffe Greenview (south of Mcknight Blvd) and will replace existing City policy documents covering those areas. For more information on the North Hill LAP, go to engage.calgary.ca and scroll down to Ongoing Projects, the North Hill Communities Local Growth Planning project is listed and updated here.
The HH-BH Community Association is actively participating in this City initiative and will be setting up electronic communication channels for residents to subscribe to, but we need all residents to become aware and involved with this City effort. This one project, covering the next 18 to 24 months, will set the tone for redevelopment in our community over the next few decades. This is our chance as residents to have the City hear our voices, it does not mean the final plan will include all our concerns, but the City has committed to listen to us before drafting the LAP.
For more information, please contact the HH-BH Community Association Director of Strategic Planning: Jeff Marsh at strategic.planning@hh-bh.ca