Real estate in Calgary - another bubble?

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by peter12

Truly spoken like someone in city government.

I mean, we’ve had recent experience and praise from applicants that have gone through the process here on Calgary. Maybe when I’m back I can dig up the testimonial for you.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I mean, we’ve had recent experience and praise from applicants that have gone through the process here on Calgary. Maybe when I’m back I can dig up the testimonial for you.

It's fine, but the overall system is completely broken. I have this argument with Lower Mainland planners all the time.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

When Hawkwood is accidentally bombed by the allies at the end of WW3, we will probably use the opportunity to build upward. Entire neighborhoods surrounding the Hague were flattened in WW2, its easier to build up when you're starting with bare pavement in a post war reconstruction.

User name checks out.

I'm not suggesting a developer goes into hawkwood, buys the lot, and begins to build some Euro-topia from the ashes. But i think we generally refuse to think this type of development is not possible over the long haul. Density is always incremental, including Calgary's current downtown and inner-city.

TODs are generally a good start

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Cappy

User name checks out.

I'm not suggesting a developer goes into hawkwood, buys the lot, and begins to build some Euro-topia from the ashes. But i think we generally refuse to think this type of development is not possible over the long haul. Density is always incremental, including Calgary's current downtown and inner-city.

TODs are generally a good start

Dafaq is a TOD?

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Dafaq is a TOD?

Transit Oriented Development.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by peter12

It's fine, but the overall system is completely broken. I have this argument with Lower Mainland planners all the time.

Ok. In any event, due to our regulatory changes and process improvements, in Calgary, Downtown area permitting for conversion can take as little as 4 weeks.

https://pub-calgary.escribemeetings....umentId=114318

Calgary has a very, very different planning and regulatory process than Vancouver or the Lower Mainland.

[InTheSlot]

Originally Posted by RichieRich

Interesting... thanks for sharing.
I heard, but am asking you to confirm, that US mortgage interest costs are tax deductible on your annual tax submissions?
Here in Canada they are not, by default, tax deductible although there is at least one way to work around this but requires quite some effort and assistance.

Yep, that's correct. I bought my first home in 2008 and have deducted the interest on my annual tax return every year since.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

We build neighborhoods for people. However, as you know, Calgary is a very car oriented place (we like to drive), and many families have a multiple number of cars. If you cut the living area in half you decrease the available parking area per car.

If you have ever experienced a neighborhood, where they started allowing infills, it's a given that the street will be, from thereon, lined with vehicles along the front of the infills.

I wish I had the photos to show you, but at the end of our street they allowed just two infills on a 50 ft lot, and the parking changed the moment they started building, and has continued long after the infills were completed. It has negatively changed the entrance to our street. You now have to be much more careful when passing other cars.

I don't need photos, I can go step out and look at my own street --- as I said, I live in an inner city neighbourhood and pretty much my whole street is infills, so I'm very familiar with this.

Even with cars lining the streets and pretty much the entire street being infills on both sides I've never had a problem with parking.
As Bunk noted, people having to drive slower on a residential street is probably a good thing.

You don’t have guests? We have 4-6 people over to our house a couple times a month, and 10+ a half-dozen times a year. Not a problem at all for guests to find parking. That is not the case in denser neighbourhoods.

My guests have never had a problem finding parking. And even then, should we be developing our city so that everybody can find easy street parking the half a dozen times a year that we have 10+ guests over for a BBQ and screw the 359 other days of the year?

I'd venture a guess that 90% of my neighbours don't use their garage for their cars.

This is true, but I'm sure they'd find room in their garage if they couldn't find a parking spot on the street.

[CliffFletcher]

TODs? Like the London Towers development at Heritage? Where people are trying to unload their units at a loss?

How people ought to live, and what they actually do if given a choice, are rarely the same thing. People are funny that way.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Zoning is not a barrier to conversion. City will accommodate easily from a regulatory standpoint. I can also expedite its approval through priority designation. The issue is primarily is the economics of it - probably need some incentives from various levels of government to see it happen at a larger scale. The other issue is suitability of a floor plate - anything over 12,000 sq ft floor plate becomes difficult for residential use.

An issue with converting high-rise office space, as has been suggested by some on here, is the fact that some of these office spaces are located in some pretty crappy areas for residential use.

The commercial core was purpose-built for commercial. Tall buildings, little green space, large thoroughfares to ship a 100,000 commuters in and out each day. As someone who prefers living close to downtown, the thought of living in Bow Valley Square doesn't overly appeal to me.

I think councillors like Woolley and Farrell did a great job of reminding Calgarian's that people actually live downtown and the surrounding area, and tried to create areas that catered to this, but given the backlash the bike lanes got for taking away some car lanes and parking spots, it's still a long way to go.

It's NIMBYist to preach about the benefits of large, affordable suburban lots with ample parking, #### on condo's and infills for encroaching on their unsustainable lifestyle and tell everyone to go live in Bankers Hall.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

TODs? Like the London Towers development? Where people are trying to unload their units at a loss?

How people ought to live, and what they actually do if given a choice, are rarely the same thing. People are funny that way.

Better examples are the developments around Sunnyside Station or Bridgeland Station. London towers isn’t the nicest of developments.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

TODs? Like the London Towers development at Heritage? Where people are trying to unload their units at a loss?

How people ought to live, and what they actually do if given a choice, are rarely the same thing. People are funny that way.

Not all TOD's are created equally.

London Towers is essentially a suburban strip mall plunked in between a highway and a car wash.

It certainly satisfies your need for street parking though!

[Calgary14]

I seem to recall the area around Anderson LRT station was supposed to be converted to a TOD long term with retail, offices etc all clustered around that station. I am guessing that's been put off for now?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Bunk

Better examples are the developments around Sunnyside Station or Bridgeland Station. London towers isn’t the nicest of developments.

True. But the areas around C-train lines tend to be pretty gross in general. Sunnyside and Bridgeland are atypical in that respect.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Cappy

Not all TOD's are created equally.

London Towers is essentially a suburban strip mall plunked in between a highway and a car wash.

A development at Chinook, Southland, or Anderson will have the same problem.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by flamesfever

You now have to be much more careful when passing other cars.

Heaven forbid.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

True. But the areas around C-train lines tend to be pretty gross in general. Sunnyside and Bridgeland are atypical in that respect.

For sure - the stations with better attributes are sure to develop first. A lot of our C-Train stations went on alignment of least resistance which means a lot of industrial and freeway. But there are a fair number of station areas of high (yet to be tapped) potential too.

[Torture]

Originally Posted by Bunk

For sure - the stations with better attributes are sure to develop first. A lot of our C-Train stations went on alignment of least resistance which means a lot of industrial and freeway. But there are a fair number of station areas of high (yet to be tapped) potential too.

Definitely seems like the City learned that lesson in how they planned the Green Line. Now if only the Provincial Government would actually fund it..

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Torture

Definitely seems like the City learned that lesson in how they planned the Green Line.

Too bad those aren't the ones being built in Stage 1. For much of the SE LRT, the stations are in the middle of not very much, old land fills, baseball parks, and empty fields.

[Regular_John]

I was ruminating on the density conversation a few months back when the residential speed limits were being voted on by city council.

The fact is, Calgary was built for cars. While we can’t start from scratch and undo that design, I do think we could get creative in how we layout our current mess of ‘Cookiegreen way/crescent/circle/drive/street/manor’ we see in much of the burbs.

Let’s consider Cranston/Auburn Bay/Seton, what if instead a mess of big box stores (with their giant parking lots) we split the businesses up into something closer to what we see in the Britannia Shopping Centre?

I’m not suggesting every neighbourhood can support a high end kitchen store or a Sunterra the way the inner city can, but we could be striving to make a a few walkable business within 1-2 km walk (note… walk, not as the bird flies) of every home.

What if every 2-3 suburban blocks had a walkable street between them?

Or if we mandated that a certain % of every neighbourhood be true “grid based” street designs?

And yes… for what I’m suggesting we may have to drop a few houses, and sacrifice some street parking to make these things happen. But I think we’ve taken the “miles and miles of roads” thing about as far as we can, before we start dropping apartment buildings into suburbia… let’s try making the current suburbs less pedestrian hostile.