Photos from Plan It on Campus

A big thanks to all of you who came out on April 2 to see what Plan It has to offer Calgary! This was hands-down the biggest event put together by the UrbanCSA and the culmination of a whole bunch of hard work. It was great to see so many people showing up to see what the future of the city might hold, and also how much free pizza can be handed out at a single event. Check out some of the photos below!

Also, word on the street is that our hoodies have arrived, so be on the lookout next week. Enjoy your Easter weekend, and be sure to check your inbox to see the status of the UrbanCSA’s first year-end party.

Youth participation urged in planning

Guillermo Guglietti wants a say in his future.

As the president of the Urban Calgary Students Association at the University of Calgary, Guglietti said he was dismayed by the overwhelming ratio of senior citizens to youth he’s seen at open houses for Plan It Calgary, the city’s long-term urban development strategy.

“We always saw the same faces and a lot of them were in their 60s and 70s,” said Guglietti.

“But I’m 23 right now and I’ll be 83 when this finishes, so I am the one inheriting this plan.”

Urban CSA approached Plan It Calgary last week, saying city planners should garner more feedback from teens and 20-somethings, as they will be affected by the 60-year-plan for most of their lives.

“We thought, ‘Why not bring this to the youth?’ ” said Guglietti.

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Renderings of Calgary’s Future Skyline

If you hadn’t noticed, that banner up at the top of our site contains a few buildings that haven’t actually been built yet. It’s an image created by Devin Henry, who works as a graphic artist for Buss Marketing. They have a pretty cool flash presentation showing the locations and heights of buildings that will be added to the skyline by 2012. Check it out at BussMarketing.ca.

Devin has done a bunch of work in his free time to visualize what the skyline could potentially look like in 2030. Some of the buildings added to the pictures have been put on hold due to the recent financial “incident”, but it’s pretty interesting getting to see images of our city’s future. The images can be found at SkyscraperPage.com, a busy message board with plenty of information on current local construction projects, and pictures of the work sites every few days.

Also, links in the right column to BikeCalgary and CentreCity Talk have been added. CentreCity has a really interesting story about urban agriculture from the Toronto Star; I’ll add it to the links section in the next update.

Drake Landing Solar Community Tour – Photos

Council orders further study in Brentwood

It would appear that the Brentwood residents’ concerns were successful in convincing City Council to hold off on fully approving the new Station Area Redevelopment Plan. It’s being reported that instead, council members have commissioned more studies about the present status of the community and the required upgrades to the surrounding infrastructure to handle the strain of 6,000 new people.

Hopefully the 6-month delay before the plan goes to Council for approval will give the city more time to continue dialogue with the residents, incorporating their priorities into the plan and making it the best it can be for all affected citizens.

From CalgaryHerald.com:

Council orders study before deciding on Brentwood development
By Jason Markusoff (jmarkusoff@theherald.canwest.com)

City council said too many questions linger to rubber-stamp plans for a cluster of office towers, condo towers and lowrises that would create an urban-style core next to the Brentwood suburb.

Aldermen today ordered months of further study of the project’s potential impacts on traffic and transit after hearing Monday from dozens of passionate fans and opponents of the 30-year project that could bring up to 8,500 new workers and residents around Brentood’s C-Train station.

Plan It Calgary design tiles

Here are pictures of a few of the map tiles put together at the Plan It Calgary Design Workshop from November 14-15, 2008. The tiles are from across Calgary and are the result of a comprehensive design session featuring city planners, community association members, developers, interested citizens, students, and a few of our very own UrbanCSA members. The goal was to redesign major activity centres throughout the city to accommodate the addition of up to 1.3 million additional citizens in a manner that encouraged density rather than sprawl. Click the thumbnails to see bigger versions!

These tiles will be used by the Plan It Calgary team to form the basis of specific policy recommendations that could potentially allow developments of this type to be created in the city. For more information, visit http://www.calgary.ca/planit.

Derek Pomreinke

European Tour: Photos