A blog by Calgary freelance writer Jeremy Klaszus.

Alderman moves to gut Plan It blueprint

Posted by Jeremy Klaszus in Klaszus Corner

Weeks after hundreds of Calgarians participated in and watched a marathon public hearing on the city's Plan It growth blueprint, an alderman is moving to essentially strip the plan of its guts and hand it over to industry for a rewrite.

City council has already directed administration to review a pile of amendments (76 of them!) to the plan, but Ald. Joe Connelly's motion calls for "measures being prescribed in the Plan It document [to] be removed and [to] be developed in the implementation phase of the project." His motion goes before council Monday.

Citizens who supported Plan It before and during the public hearing aren't impressed, to say the least. Pro-Plan It group CivicCamp is calling Connelly's motion "bizarre." CivicCamper DJ Kelly says Connelly's motion is "ridiculous."

Kelly writes on his blog: "What would be the POINT of creating a visionary document, laying out the future growth of the city of Calgary, that does not have any measures indicating how we would do that?!"

Connelly's motion calls for the creation of a "committee of industry stakeholders" to come up with more realistic measures and bring them to council by December.

Here's the full text of Connelly's motion:

WHEREAS the Plan-It project has produced a visionary document which will establish the "blueprint" for growth and transportation for the next 60 years with an impact on our city that cannot be understated;

AND WHEREAS the assumptions in the Plan-It document suggest a significant change in consumer and commuting behaviors which may or may not occur;

AND WHEREAS the measure outlined in the Plan-It document were seen to be too prescriptive and, in some cases, impossible to achieve;

AND WHEREAS given the challenges of predicting the future, a prudent and cautious approach to the Plan-It strategy should be employed.

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the measures being prescribed in the Plan-It document be removed and be developed in the implementation phase of the project.

AND FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED that a committee of industry stakeholders be struck to determine by consensus, measures that can realistically be achieved together with an implementation strategy and make recommendations to Council through the Standing Policy Committee on Land Use Planning and Transportation by 2009 December 09.


more in News     |     posted Jul 10th, 2009 at 12:29pm     

Comments: 8

Agent666 wrote:

Really, unless we reduce immigration to a sustainable level, the 'war' against sprawl is lost. Imposing a hard cap on Canada's population (as proposed in the UK), along with a FEDERAL ban on greenfield development is the only solution. Doing so will require confronting powerful enemies: the banking, construction and ethnic lobbies, with their links to the mainstream political parties (including 'environmental' ones, like the Greens and NDP).

New Urbanist 'smart growth' isn't going to do it.

on Jul 10th, 2009 at 4:13pm Report Abuse

calgaryhumper wrote:

Oh please. Who is going to take care of you and your family in your retirement community when you are too old to wipe your own ass? People that come here from other countries are ESSENTIAL to our countries ability to thrive and survive. You are barking up the wrong tree.

on Jul 12th, 2009 at 2:50am Report Abuse

Agent666 wrote:

calgaryhumper: have you seen the age profile of many of our new immigrants? Thanks to family reunification efforts, vast numbers of ELDERLY people are entering the country...just in time for someone 'to wipe their asses'. The only sectors of the economy that really need a quarter million plus per year population growth are developers and banks. Otherwise environmentally-aware people like yourself have bought the demographic propaganda of banks and the construction industry, and are too terrified to be called 'racist' for noticing that population growth inevitably increases land and freshwater use. There really is no way around it--the only way to put the brakes on greenfield development and save our freshwater supply is to stop increasing our population by hundreds of thousands per year.

on Jul 12th, 2009 at 2:20pm Report Abuse

Drew Anderson wrote:

Geez, always with the immigration and banking conspiracy thing with you. Canada has the highest rate of immigration in the world. We have one of the best standards of living in world. We have among the lowest population densities in the world. We are not reproducing at a level that would even maintain our current populatino numbers, let alone overburden us.

Banks rely on the wealth of established Canadian citizens far more than immigrants. We need labour to build the city we want. We need immigrants to maintain our economy and to build a more vibrant country.
This whole stop immigration, stop our problems stuff is just a mindless and baseless excuse to say things that you appropriately identify as racist.

Without immigration we have stagnation and a slow decline. Sustainable development and immigration are two seperate issues, particularly in this country.

As for the actual content of this blog post, it's ridiculous. How could Connelly propose something like this with a straight face. Industry stakeholders? I wonder what kind of document they will come up with. Sad if it passes.

on Jul 13th, 2009 at 11:47am Report Abuse

Agent666 wrote:

Australia has an even higher rate of immigration than Canada, for much the same reasons (more people justify more housing developments). To reiterate: the only sector that NEEDS constant population is the construction industry. Banks assets are primarilly in the form of mortgages and other debts, which increase with more housing sales and consumer debt.

Since 1960, Canada has lost 20 000 000 hectares of farmland to development. Most of the home construction has occured in farming areas--Southern Ontario, the Southern Prairies, and the Okanagan and Lower Mainland areas. Regardless of their living arangments, people also require potable and irrigation water, the supplies of which are in decline.

As for the density of developments, have you been to, say, Country Hills? that is very HIGH density development (mostly condos and detatched homes with very little yard). And, to repeat, densification and 'intensification' aren't addressing future freshwater and food needs.

The question of 'racism' isn't relevant. For the purposes of averting an ecological disaster, it doesn't matter WHERE immigrants are coming from (or whether or not population growth comes from domestic births), but the sheer NUMBERS of people added to Canada annually. By trimming immigration to sane levels (i.e., at, or below replacement) is the only effective way to stop the destruction of greenspace and overtaxing of our water supply.

This may be of interest:

http://www.smartgrowth.bc.ca/Portals/0/Downloads/Sprawl2004.pdf

on Jul 13th, 2009 at 6:19pm Report Abuse

Drew Anderson wrote:

Canada's population growth is 0.82, INCLUDING immigration. We're ranked 138 in the world for growth in numbers. Our birth rate is 10.28 per 1,000 (ranked 192 out of 224). Hardly a swollen system. In terms of immigration we're ranked 18, a few below Australia (you're right). 80 per cent of our population lives in urban areas.

Other industries that benefit from immigration and population growth: forestry, fishing, manufacturing, services (including restaurants, hotels, help lines, and on and on), public sector, information technology, medicine, r & d, agriculture, communications...

Um, I think all of them do actually.

Where did you get the stat regarding loss of farmland? And does that stat factor in new farmland? Because one farm gets gobbled up by a city, doesn't mean there isn't growth somewhere else. And what time span does that stat cover?

on Jul 14th, 2009 at 12:19pm Report Abuse

Agent666 wrote:

http://www.springerlink.com/content/p6078l366384u5r6/
http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/att_c101sec2e_e_11713.html
http://www.erudit.org/revue/cgq/2005/v49/n138/012563ar.pdf

The point is that infinite growth and 'sustainablility' aren't compatible. You can't have both. Cities like Calgary and Toronto were once smack in the middle of farming areas, catering to the needs of agriculture. Calgary's Stampede is a vestige of that--a sort of agri-industrial fair. Expanding the metropolitan area encroaches onto what was once farmland. Climate and soil conditions (and access to irrigation water) favour agriculture in very limited areas of Canada--you can't start growing wheat in Nunavut. The quarter million plus immigrants who come here aren't interested in moving to, say, Iqaluit. NORTHERN Ontario has actually lost population, as the south expands.

The other myth is that we have some sort of 'labour shortage'. It's either the crappy jobs (proverbial seniors' homes diaper-changers), or skilled professionals. With the former, there's two issues. First of all, sleazy businesses wanting to cut labour costs (this includes ETHNIC businesses, like the South Asian orchard owners in BC who import their poor countrymen and treat them like slave labour). Secondly, there are labour sinks that could be done away with. Liquidate pointless make-work bureauracracies like city building and business permit offices, pet registries, the bylaw department--that's just at the MUNICIPAL level--and people who are already here will have to find real jobs. As for the doctor shortage...this happened because the technocrats in the Medical Associations and government restricted medical school enrolment, to 'contain costs'. A growing population also requires more doctors, construction workers, &c., and all the elderly immigrants are yet another actuarial drain on the pension system.

Recently, there has been an admission in the UK of the ecological and social disaster caused by the Labour government's massive immigration increase, to the point that Labour itself has called for a population cap. We need to look at this here, too. Also, there should be an ABSOLUTE BAN on any greenfield development, or conversion of agricultural land, for non-agricultural uses. Food and water security override the profit imperatives of homebuilders.

Yet another interesting article:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=civilization-food-shortages

on Jul 14th, 2009 at 3:02pm Report Abuse


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