Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferarri
Just wanted to get people’s thoughts/vent about the City of Calgary maintenance responsibilities for communities. I live in a NW community that was built in 2012 and the state of the community has decreased significantly in recent years. The community honestly looks like a ghetto with weeds everywhere, dead trees and gravel medians.
I’ve reached out to my councilor on several occasions and well receptive to the issues, there doesn’t seem to be much done to rectify the problems. Last year they removed some dead trees but that was about it. My biggest point of frustration is the medians which barely have grass anymore. It’s just gravel and patchy weeds.
The City has mentioned that weed maintenance, such as dandelions, is no longer treated as it is not a noxious. Others and I in the community are extremely frustrated, and like many Calgarians, property taxes rise year after year, yet the community looks horrible. If you drive around other NW areas, they seem to be much more manicured.
Any recommendations at this point? The standard answer is to call 311 and report problem areas, however, the entire neighborhood is a problem and past attempts with 311 have been useless. We also pay an annual HOA fee, but median maintenance (aside from flower beds) is not part of their mandate. It’s getting to be really frustrating to have to look at the state of the community. Not sure what else to do at this point or if we are just going to have to accept that this is the standard from the City.
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Depending on how much you want to push this thing, keep up with the councilor and get other people in the community and his or her VOTERS to attend the meeting in a general place. Push hard for resolutions. You can also try going to the media as a local news story to embarrass the city into action.
I feel your frustration as I am dealing with something somewhat similar in my SW community of West Springs. Although I would not say it's looking like a ghetto, the amount of handcuffs the city has placed on basic things like flower beds, blvd maintenance, signage and more is laughable. Where I am getting frustrated is 2 of the walkways in the area are literally falling apart due to tree root's coming up, have drainage issues that turn them into skating rinks and are not shoveled. The local HOA has tried convincing the city to allow a contractor to clear the snow so it's at least decent but to no avail. This is a safety issue for members of the community and nobody has "jurisdiction" on how to properly address this and I am speaking as a fit male in my 30's, what about older seniors?. We can't be the only area with this problem but we are fed a LOT of garbage by the city about bike lanes, walkable cities and changing the world with the above by reducing climate change, yet we can't get the go ahead to clear walking paths of snow. Laughable.
The city does provide a decent level of service but in a lot of scenarios from management/council/admin, their sole job is to continue the theft, fraud and complete lack of workable action in helping the people who employ them