Strategic Planning

Guidebook for Great Communities: Public Hearing Delayed

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The April edition of the HHBH Beacon will be published shortly, and it has an article that outlines some of the HHBH Community Association’s (CA’s) concerns regarding the City of Calgary’s “Guidebook for Great Communities” (Guidebook).    The Guidebook will produce very significant changes in the way that development occurs in established residential neighbourhoods in our City.   A key concern for CAs in established areas across the city is the fact that the proposed changes will effectively remove single family zoning.  If approved this means is that on any lot in our neighbourhood, developers could build a single family home, a duplex, a triplex, or townhouses of up to three storeys.  Approvals for such developments would be granted.  Any form of such housing developments would be allowed on any street – meaning  a single street could be a haphazard mix of bungalows, duplexes, triplexes fourplexes or rowhousing.

A hearing and presentation to City Council on the Guidebook was scheduled for April 27.  Together with other CAs, the HHBH CA lobbied to have the date postponed, given the impossibility of effectively engaging with residents on such a significant development issue during a pandemic.  Last week, we received notice that City administration will be recommending that the hearing on this matter be deferred to a later date.  Of course no date has been set yet, but we will continue to post information regarding this issue on the HHBH website so please stay tuned.  We will do more to engage with local residents when it is safe to do so.  Stay well everyone.

In the meantime below is more information about the City of Calgary Guidebook for Great Communities initiative:

New Local Area Plan for Hounsfield Heights – Briar Hill

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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

 

16th Avenue Widening Engagement

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Thanks to everyone who came out to the City hosted Open House last week to learn about the project and provide feedback! Couldn’t make the Open House? Or you attended but you’ve had additional thoughts since then that you’d like to share? The City’s online version of the in person Open House is active!

The Community Association would also like to invite you to share and discuss your perspectives on this project with your neighbors by also posting them to the community forum for this project.  It really helps each of us to understand what everyone else is thinking!