MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

I'm dumb.
For some reason I thougth curves was replying...
I've edited my post and humbly request we all just forget about this unfortunate incident.

Funny story though, I've been on the planning committee in my community association, and you'd be surprised how often people make this exact kind of accusation, and I tell them the exact same thing.
Basically if you've got proof of that, you should do something about it. If not, I'm not going to tolerate people accusing others of crimes while we are trying to have a productive meeting. So that kind of talk by people really annoys me.

Well fraud and payoffs happen all the time in government, even in Canada. I know some people don't believe that it happens in Canada, but it does to shocking levels. We have the economy to hide it, it's when you live in other countries that are poor, where you can't.

Do I think it happens here? Perhaps, but we do know that a lot of city land is available and is going to become available for cheap for PRIVATE development.

Look no further then the arena deal for the Flames and Calgary. Does anybody think the City got a great deal for taxpayers? Or did one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country get a bunch of us to actually pay him the ability to raise the value of his club to the tune of hundreds of millions while increasing profits. The previous deal was fair but with the ownership group taking significant risk, now that risk is transferred to you and I.

There are enough examples of land that ends up being developed for cheap, and it makes you wonder, when was this lot for sale? Any news articles or signage that this went for tenure?

From what I have seen, this appears to be almost a forgone conclusion but do we have any sort of ballpark value on the land sale? I would assume, given it's location and the prospect of development, the city should net a significant amount.

We can't have a developer tell us all these amazing things that will come from this development while the city sells it for cheap, because it's just some surplus park land. That's not how it should work.'

I am actually in favor of development

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

Threesomes in Glenmore never lead to happiness, it seems.

Residents of that part of town are more into land swaps I’ve been told.

[timun]

Campeau Corp. wanted to get into some of that kinky apartment towers ####, but that prude City of Calgary wouldn't go for it.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Well fraud and payoffs happen all the time in government, even in Canada. I know some people don't believe that it happens in Canada, but it does to shocking levels. We have the economy to hide it, it's when you live in other countries that are poor, where you can't.

Do I think it happens here? Perhaps, but we do know that a lot of city land is available and is going to become available for cheap for PRIVATE development.

Look no further then the arena deal for the Flames and Calgary. Does anybody think the City got a great deal for taxpayers? Or did one of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the country get a bunch of us to actually pay him the ability to raise the value of his club to the tune of hundreds of millions while increasing profits. The previous deal was fair but with the ownership group taking significant risk, now that risk is transferred to you and I.

There are enough examples of land that ends up being developed for cheap, and it makes you wonder, when was this lot for sale? Any news articles or signage that this went for tenure?

From what I have seen, this appears to be almost a forgone conclusion but do we have any sort of ballpark value on the land sale? I would assume, given it's location and the prospect of development, the city should net a significant amount.

We can't have a developer tell us all these amazing things that will come from this development while the city sells it for cheap, because it's just some surplus park land. That's not how it should work.'

I am actually in favor of development

I don't mean this to sound as rude as it does so apologize in advance, but; Are you just trying to fit a narrative into this discussion even though it doesn't belong?

Don't ignore tax revenue either. Even if someone else wanted to buy 30 feet of grass they can't do anything with, the city makes next to nothing off of that going forward. Even if RioCan did get some sort of discount, which you can't prove just want to keep harping on anyway, the City and taxpayers still make way more off of that deal vs selling it for more to anyone else

[timun]

I don't care if I sound rude: what a bunch of whataboutery nonsense.

curves: go read the document I linked to here. Read it carefully. The gist is this was previously private land that was transferred to the City's possession 40 years ago, with the caveat that they weren't allowed to do anything else with it. The owner of the Glenmore Landing mall was obliged to maintain it. Now said owner wants to do something with it, and the City wants housing built, so they're going to sell it back to the owner to build apartments. For how much? Probably the appraised value, which you can go look up on https://maps.calgary.ca/myproperty.

There's no grand conspiracy here to enrich private enterprise by the selling of public lands on the cheap. This land in question is a couple patches of grass between the mall, 14th Street and 90th Ave: it's totally useless—and worthless—to anyone else but RioCan.

[Wormius]

I think he might be bitter cause it got snatched by RioCan before Chick-Fil-A even had a chance.

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by timun

I don't care if I sound rude: what a bunch of whataboutery nonsense.

curves: go read the document I linked to here. Read it carefully. The gist is this was previously private land that was transferred to the City's possession 40 years ago, with the caveat that they weren't allowed to do anything else with it. The owner of the Glenmore Landing mall was obliged to maintain it. Now said owner wants to do something with it, and the City wants housing built, so they're going to sell it back to the owner to build apartments. For how much? Probably the appraised value, which you can go look up on https://maps.calgary.ca/myproperty.

There's no grand conspiracy here to enrich private enterprise by the selling of public lands on the cheap. This land in question is a couple patches of grass between the mall, 14th Street and 90th Ave: it's totally useless—and worthless—to anyone else but RioCan.

Sure, I will concede that for sure. Rio Can will buy the land for cheap and then be able to develop it. This is a massive development. Totally fine.

But any fool who doesn't see what happens with developers or with the politically connected, is just a random fool. If you put biases aside, you can clearly see where it happens.

Midfield Park Trailer Park from 7-8 years ago. The big issue here with the location of utilities and piping. Absolutely nothing could be done about keeping what in essence, are poor people who nobody cares for, in their trailer homes and in the area. Fast forward to recent news and the city has approved a very very nice plan for the area. Lot's of money to be made here and truth is, nobody want's trailer trash next to new development. I guess water and utility lines really were not the reason for the eviction. It's not like the city is having this parcel of land be redeveloped for really low income and home ownership housing. It's going really nice.

https://www.bestcalgaryhomes.com/mid...y-coming-soon/


Richmond Green Golf Course: This beautiful parcel of land has literally a BILLION things going for it from a development standpoint. The city decided to close the course because of some financial losses of $150k a year, tough to quantify sometimes but sure, a loss is a loss. There was also some maintenance issues with the water lines etc. Tough times in 2019 required the city to get it's budget house in order and this prime piece of real estate was where council decided it was going to cut bait.

https://calgaryherald.com/news/local...er-2019-season

Land was set to be sold at $15million but with no successful offers, will probably be sold at a significant discount to a developer who will make big time bank on this project. Does it not make more sense for the city to develop this land via CMLC for low income housing, drug rehab or any other of the city priorities for housing? Na, why have bums kicking around when we can sell prime land for cheap. Just wait until this property get's sold for next to nothing.

Let's move over to development going on near Shaganappi golf course. Brookfield Residential has started construction of a beautiful piece of land where previously was also low income, trailer style home. Transit, downtown close, views, parks and more are all there. This appears to have been a private sale to a private developer, so I don't have many issues.

What I can see happening almost without a doubt, is that there will be more and more of a push to close Shaganappi Golf course citing "subsidies of golf courses" , have the city sell the land for cheap and have a lot more development occur by private developers.

I have no problem with development and private developers. I do have an issue where city council and admin appear to be selling off city owned assets for cheap so that other's can benefit.

This happens at the provincial level and federal level across the board. This is not anything new but sometimes when it's in your face, it kinda makes people mad.

[timun]

Originally Posted by curves2000

Sure [...]

But [...]

[Slava]

^Richmond golf course has a problem as far as development though. I think it’s a cistern or something like that, so it won’t be developed. It’s prime real estate, but the uses are limited.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Slava

^Richmond golf course has a problem as far as development though. I think it’s a cistern or something like that, so it won’t be developed. It’s prime real estate, but the uses are limited.

I've heard this about the cistern, too. There's also the fact that Richmond Green is roughly 12 hectares of land...immediately adjacent to Currie Barracks' 75+ hectares of land in process of redevelopment. And about 500 meters away from the Viscount Bennett site.

Maybe it just doesn't make sense to flood the market with similar offerings right beside each other? Maybe prospective developers are smart enough to know that? Or maybe it's just cOrRuPtIoN!!!!!

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

I never said the city planners are a joke, and you must have me confused with someone else. I called this laughable, which it is. Glenmore Landing needs improvement as it is. Plenty of people avoid it or use it as a last resort today based on the traffic flow issues. I’ve seen the proposals for how they’re going to improve with this project and it’s incredibly limited. That’s because it has to be with that location and the existing infrastructure.

I haven’t seen the exit design but I think you could greatly improve the area by simply having 3 left turns lanes coming out of glenmore landing that turn into the 3 left turning lanes on 90th. The lack of a full intersection at 90th helps out a lot with capacity there.

That whole glenmore landing parking lot is also a non-intuitive disaster. So I think that just labeling tbe project as will be worse is not quite right.

They did screw up the road in the initial design. Should be a double left coming out and a right/straight. That might be something that commentary could improve.

https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/w...on-package.pdf

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GGG

I haven’t seen the exit design but I think you could greatly improve the area by simply having 3 left turns lanes coming out of glenmore landing that turn into the 3 left turning lanes on 90th. The lack of a full intersection at 90th helps out a lot with capacity there.

That whole glenmore landing parking lot is also a non-intuitive disaster. So I think that just labeling tbe project as will be worse is not quite right.

They did screw up the road in the initial design. Should be a double left coming out and a right/straight. That might be something that commentary could improve.

https://www.calgary.ca/content/dam/w...on-package.pdf

Sure, maybe it could be fixed with that, but they haven’t got the room to do that. There are two lanes to exit there (which is the Jerusalem Road exit) and one turns left on 90th. The other turns right or goes south(erly). There are multiple issues with just adding more lanes to exit Glenmore Landing there though. First and foremost, they don’t have room. Second, more cars to turn left (east) just means that intersection is backed up because those cars need to get onto 14th. So it means 90th is a mess, and just slightly shifts the problem.

And yeah, the parking is bad there today. I’m in favour if that part of the redevelopment. Red Glenmore Landing and fix all that, but don’t build 6 towers of people to exacerbate the issue. So, I suppose in the Ben you could say it’s not a disaster, but it’s a strange angle to take.

[Manhattanboy]

Is there anyone who thought or thinks the 14st bus lanes were money well spent?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Is there anyone who thought or thinks the 14st bus lanes were money well spent?

I’d be curious to see the ridership numbers of the route. The bus looks almost empty every time I see it go by. We live in the area and my kids take transit all the time, but never the BRT. There’s nowhere they go where taking a regular bus to Southland or Heritage station and then north/south on the LRT from there isn’t the best route.

I had thought the BRT might be useful if they go to Mount Royal. But even with the BRT the trip involves 3 different buses and takes 45 min. With the ring road, MRU is a 10 min drive from our house.

The notion that loads of people in the area were eager to take public transit to Heritage Park and the Rockyview always struck me as the kind of idealistic, wishful thinking that urban planners seem in thrall to.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I’d be curious to see the ridership numbers of the route. The bus looks almost empty every time I see it go by. We live in the area and my kids take transit all the time, but never the BRT. There’s nowhere they go where taking a regular bus to Southland or Heritage station and then north/south on the LRT from there isn’t the best route.

I had thought the BRT might be useful if they go to Mount Royal. But even with the BRT the trip involves 3 different buses and takes 45 min. With the ring road, MRU is a 10 min drive from our house.

The notion that loads of people in the area were eager to take public transit to Heritage Park and the Rockyview always struck me as the kind of idealistic, wishful thinking that urban planners seem in thrall to.

I hope they do lookbacks on big projects. If very project is a success then you know people are lying. Every enterprise should do honest lookbacks, rarely ever happens.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Slava

And yeah, the parking is bad there today. I’m in favour if that part of the redevelopment. Red Glenmore Landing and fix all that, but don’t build 6 towers of people to exacerbate the issue. So, I suppose in the Ben you could say it’s not a disaster, but it’s a strange angle to take.

What’s the path to getting a return on investment for RioCan do redevelop the parking, but not the added revenue generating space?

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

What’s the path to getting a return on investment for RioCan do redevelop the parking, but not the added revenue generating space?

Well, that's all up to them? It's a private business and they do their thing. If the situation there is bad for users, they'll go somewhere else. Their tenants won't want to be in the space and that part of commercial real estate.

[surferguy]

The real solution to the traffic at Glenmore landing is to add a ferry to North Glenmore park. Let Lake view share in the parking/vehicle burden.

[topfiverecords]

Back to back three lane roundabouts!

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Manhattanboy

Is there anyone who thought or thinks the 14st bus lanes were money well spent?

It’ll probably be worth it when they eventually put down some lrt tracks in their place.