| New Beltline ARP
After eights years of planning and community consultations Mission finally has a new Area Redevelopment Plan (ARP).
Pat Maiani, president of the Cliff Bungalow/Mission Community Association, says he’s generally happy with the ARP.
"I guess the main thing about it is it proposes a vision for the community and part of that is recognizing the history and preserving, if possible, the heritage buildings," he says.
The new ARP will cap the height of apartment buildings at five storeys and new apartment buildings will be required to be "sensitive" to Mission’s historical character. As well the ARP has stronger language around preserving heritage buildings than the previous ARP did.
"There is a policy that says the city encourages the preservation of buildings included on the inventory of potential heritage sites and encourages adaptive reuse of historical sites and structures," says Whitney Smithers, co-ordinator for established community planning.
The new ARP will also allow homeowners to build apartment units or townhouses in their backyards, which wasn’t previously allowed. Homeowners would be able to make some money on rent in order to help pay escalating property taxes.
"It does a couple of things. It gives people an opportunity to maintain their character home or continue to live in their character home over time but also it looks at a achieving the city’s objective of increasing the density generally. It contributes to our objective of having a variety of built form in the community," says Smithers.
The Mission ARP won’t include the new incentives to preserve heritage buildings that are in the Beltline ARP. Under the Beltline ARP owners of a historic building can have their building designated as a heritage site by the city and then sell density rights to a developer who can then build a higher density building than the city would normally allow on another site.
"The difficulty in Mission is to consider density bonusing we’d have to consider increasing the density in residential districts which we heard quite clearly from the community they didn’t want to do," says Smithers.
The ARP also includes new design guidelines for developers to create a "pedestrian friendly, more interesting, better quality design, a more human scale of buildings in relation to the street," says Smithers.
Calgary Folk Festival selling out fast
If you haven’t bought Calgary Folk Festival tickets yet you may soon be out of luck. The festival has already sold-out for Saturday and was close to selling out on Sunday as of press time.
Les Siemieniuk, general manager of the festival, says ticket sales for Thursday and Friday are both well ahead of previous years as well.
"It will be the biggest attendance ever. It’s just great that before the gates open we know we’re going to fine even if it rains. It takes a lot of pressure off because if people buy tickets at the gate, if it rains they won’t come," he says. "It’s a really good sign that people are taking us seriously because they’re buying tickets and not waiting."
He describes the festival as "like a little mini village downtown for four days" and says every year people rave about the new musicians they have discovered.
"Every year the comment we hear is I came to hear Feist but I found Elliot Brood," he says.
Calgary bars to go smoke free
As of January 2007, nearly all Calgary bars will go smoke free.
Seen by some on City Council as an awkward compromise, the ban allows establishments that have invested money in sealed smoking rooms to continue to permit smoking.
Some on council foresee legal issues due to the vague nature of the term "smoking room," that could refer to the entire establishment.
Robyn Hefferton, a vocal anti-smoking activist who spearheaded a campaign to pressure city hall in support of the ban, is pleased with the compromise.
"Ideally, a skilled lawyer works for city council and will draft this up properly to avoid confusion," says Hefferton. "I think it is something that most Calgarians can live with for the next year and a half and I think they expected some leadership out of city council"
A spokesperson for the Calgary Pub and Bar Association is calling the city’s ban on smoking in pubs and bar’s unfair and undemocratic.
Charlie Mendelman says city council’s decision to move the smoke-free date ahead to 2007 from the agreed upon 2008 is a violation of a deal made in good faith and will harm the industry.
"We are very upset at city council for bringing this back up," says Mendelman. "As stakeholders, why didn’t they meet with us? We were under the understanding from the agreement that this would not reappear."
Mendelman points out that bars across Canada took a hit to their bottom lines after their provinces implemented smoking bans.
"Business does not like major change." |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.