MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

presumably their councilor should step up to bat for them.

Maybe they would, but a CA can't claim to speak for the whole community on everything. Heck I've gone and submitted letters to council for/against developments in my neighbourhood, they get logged and submitted too with the applications.

[timun]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

The city would be incalculably better if Community Associations all went and just ####ed themselves and nobody listened to them.

If the CA doesn't agree with the City they'll usually ignore them, but if the CA agrees the City will use "the community supports this proposed development" as justification for approval. That's one of the underlying issues at hand in Banff Trail.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by timun

If the CA doesn't agree with the City they'll usually ignore them, but if the CA agrees the City will use "the community supports this proposed development" as justification for approval. That's one of the underlying issues at hand in Banff Trail.

I disagree completely. I am on the community association board in Banff Trail and I can confirm that a small group of NIMBYs are fighting development by hitting their firsts on the table and demanding that the city listen to them and only them. The CA never had the power to tell the city what to do with zoning and, to these few people, that means the tyrannical city is ignoring them. A small group of wealthy white people demand that their opinions matter more than others, more news at 11:00!

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1590038442024599552

[timun]

Originally Posted by wireframe

I disagree completely. I am on the community association board in Banff Trail and I can confirm that a small group of NIMBYs are fighting development by hitting their firsts on the table and demanding that the city listen to them and only them. The CA never had the power to tell the city what to do with zoning and, to these few people, that means the tyrannical city is ignoring them. A small group of wealthy white people demand that their opinions matter more than others, more news at 11:00!

Ha, well then amusingly we both know some of the same people, but probably don't know each other personally.

I think you're mischaracterizing their position by saying "[they're] demanding that the City listen to them and only them"; rather, I think it's a matter of the City not listening at all. The City perpetually ignores any feedback it doesn't want to hear. To me the impact of the case is much, much deeper than your analysis. And when you call people "NIMBYs" it's going precisely to the heart of what Kerstin Plaxton was quoted as saying in Klaszus's work: "If you call somebody a NIMBY, you shut down conversation right away. You're telling somebody, 'Your concerns aren't valid.' " She's 100% correct. A lot of "YIMBYs" out there are only YIMBYs right up until it's their backyard; all of a sudden a lot of them become "YISEBYs"—"Yes, in someone else's backyard"...

I look at the situation and I see it starting off with an ARP that says "we recognize we're now an 'inner city' neighbourhood and it makes sense that this neighbourhood densifies over time", which is all fine and dandy. In 2016-17 the City amended the ARP and redesignated properties along 23rd Ave as R-CG, allowing rowhouses to be built. This completely ignored the restrictive covenant on the properties in question; City went ahead and did it anyway.

Then you get adjacent residents in a contextual semi-detached infill who have a new proposed rowhouse going up next door. An argument used against them at the time is "you knew this was coming when you bought into the neighbourhood (ca. 2019)," and their comments are brushed aside, even though the proposed development doesn't meet R-CG requirements. They take it SDAB, development is approved with some conditions to alleviate concerns, and SDAB says "we recognize there's a restrictive covenant in place here but that's a matter for the courts to decide, we're just going to evaluate it against the constraints imposed by the LUB, MDP and MGA".

The developers aren't satisfied though, and working with City administration Direct Control districts at selective sites throughout the neighbourhood are pushed through. DC bylaws which state "thou shalt not build anything less than rowhouses or multiuse apartment buildings", and the rationale for passing these DC bylaws is specifically to help support the developers in their court applications to have the encumbrances on their titles removed! On the one hand you have the City passing ARP amendments and land use redesignations that say "we recognize that there's a restrictive covenant in place here but our policy changes are going to be made irrespective of the civil matter at hand", and then they stick their proverbial thumb on the scales to MAKE these developments happen and help make the restrictive covenant go away.

That is the part that perturbs me most. City administration's power to regulate development is being wielded as a cudgel in a civil matter before the courts, to help push things through, and the DC bylaw process is in my mind being abused to make it happen. The DC districts are supposed to be used where there's some sort of very specific site constraint that make fitting within the LUB land uses infeasible, and that's not the case here at all. The court's ruling discharged the restrictive covenant on the parcels which have had DC bylaws enacted to make their minimum permitted uses higher than the covenant would allow, while the parcels that don't have such DC districts did not mean the judge's criteria to dismiss the restrictive covenant.

Now there's a precedent, a playbook for developers to follow to make restrictive covenants go away if you've got a municipal government that'll play ball, and I think that has huge downstream ramifications that aren't being talked about. You're characterizing this as "wealthy white people demand[ing] that their opinions matter more than others" (which is funny if you know the couple involved because they're not that wealthy and not that "white", lol) while I look at it and see actions on our municipal government's behalf that should be ringing alarm bells for any property owner. I tend to agree with their position on the use of DC districts in this case; to me it's a very insidious, incestuous relationship between developers and City admin being used to brush aside private property interests, to make "problem" people go away.

The use of DC districts in this case really reinforces what I see as a massive problem with the way they're being used. One example nearer my house is the "Courtyard 33" building at the corner of 33rd Ave & 22nd Street SW in Marda Loop. The developer in that case (RndSqr) lobbied council to pass a DC district bylaw which limited the only permissible use on the site to their building. In effect it quashed any opposition to it and functionally it made appealling to the SDAB impossible: SDAB would find that the DP drawings match the bylaw and say "meh, nothing to appeal here". It's a perversion of the entire process that was, to me, all about shutting up dissent. The end product is a POS that many have likened to a shanty from a Brazilian favela:

Spoiler!

It also calls into question "Why do we bother having ARPs?" City admin will unilaterally revise them to suit developer initiatives and goals anyway. Like I said, community "buy-in" gets used to support developments, and ARPs are a huge part of how "buy-in" is measured and used as a criterion for acceptance of a development proposal. But community dissent gets ignored, and isn't a criterion for acceptance or refusal of a development. My neighbourhood CA spent about a decade with City admin writing a draft ARP, and ultimately gave up on completing it and advocating for it to be passed because everyone on the board could see it would just be summarily ignored anyway.

A lot of people in this City feel like their government doesn't give a crap what they have to say and it really bears out when you look at what's happened in Banff Trail, and as much as I never supported bozos like Jeromy Farkas, Sean Chu, Joey Maggs, etc. I do think they have a point and are very effective when they campaign on being voices of dissent on council.

[SebC]

The city should look for a blanket legislative nullification of the restrictive covenants.

[Lubicon]

Tinum, I just want to say thanks for some of your recent posts (also the one about attached garages). Zoning regulations are pretty dry and boring (to me) but you've managed to put them into words that are plain English and pretty simple to understand.

[timun]

Thanks.

[timun]

Anybody want to see what real "wealthy white people" can make happen in their neighbourhood?

Spoiler!

That's a landuse map of Mount Royal. For reference, the intersection of 14th Street and 17th Ave SW is at the top left corner of the image.

That area in red is controlled by a Direct Control district. Bylaw 1Z98. You wanna know the gist of what 1Z98 says?

"The purpose of this district is to preserve the unique characteristics of a special area of the city."

In the Land Use Bylaw there already exists a land use for "large parcel" residential lots, R-C1L, which says maximum lot coverage (amount of the lot covered by buildings) is 40%. DC 1Z98 sets a maximum 35% up to a 1100 sq m lot, and for any portion over 1100 sq m the additional lot coverage is only 30% max. In effect (as the note in the image says) this makes it the least dense housing area in the entire city. The typical front setback—the distance between the house and front property line—in R-C1L is 6 metres. In DC 1Z98 the minimum is 6 m on some parcels, but 8-14 m on most, and upwards of 22 m (twenty-two!) on the east side of Amherst Street.

Banff Trail has City administration working with developers to overturn a restrictive covenant using Direct Control districts; Mount Royal has their restrictive covenant all but enshrined by a Direct Control district... That's real wealthy white people keeping the poors out.

[Fuzz]

That looks like a great neighborhood for a homeless shelter.

[timun]

Halfway house, maybe? An affordable housing project or two?

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by timun

Anybody want to see what real "wealthy white people" can make happen in their neighbourhood?

Spoiler!

That's a landuse map of Mount Royal. For reference, the intersection of 14th Street and 17th Ave SW is at the top left corner of the image.

That area in red is controlled by a Direct Control district. Bylaw 1Z98. You wanna know the gist of what 1Z98 says?

"The purpose of this district is to preserve the unique characteristics of a special area of the city."

In the Land Use Bylaw there already exists a land use for "large parcel" residential lots, R-C1L, which says maximum lot coverage (amount of the lot covered by buildings) is 40%. DC 1Z98 sets a maximum 35% up to a 1100 sq m lot, and for any portion over 1100 sq m the additional lot coverage is only 30% max. In effect (as the note in the image says) this makes it the least dense housing area in the entire city. The typical front setback—the distance between the house and front property line—in R-C1L is 6 metres. In DC 1Z98 the minimum is 6 m on some parcels, but 8-14 m on most, and upwards of 22 m (twenty-two!) on the east side of Amherst Street.

Banff Trail has City administration working with developers to overturn a restrictive covenant using Direct Control districts; Mount Royal has their restrictive covenant all but enshrined by a Direct Control district... That's real wealthy white people keeping the poors out.

Yeah, the zoning for Upper Mount Royal is something. Rich people get what they want. There is no way they should have rebuilt an under-utilized school after the flood when its only a few blocks from another existing elementary. But the people in the area are rich and wanted it, so everyone pays.

[corporatejay]

Nm

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by timun

... The end product is a POS that many have likened to a shanty from a Brazilian favela:

Spoiler!

...

These many should spend some time in a favela, before making such ignorant comments.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by timun

Ha, well then amusingly we both know some of the same people, but probably don't know each other personally.

I think you're mischaracterizing their position by saying "[they're] demanding that the City listen to them and only them"; rather, I think it's a matter of the City not listening at all. The City perpetually ignores any feedback it doesn't want to hear. To me the impact of the case is much, much deeper than your analysis. And when you call people "NIMBYs" it's going precisely to the heart of what Kerstin Plaxton was quoted as saying in Klaszus's work: "If you call somebody a NIMBY, you shut down conversation right away. You're telling somebody, 'Your concerns aren't valid.' " She's 100% correct. A lot of "YIMBYs" out there are only YIMBYs right up until it's their backyard; all of a sudden a lot of them become "YISEBYs"—"Yes, in someone else's backyard"...

I look at the situation and I see it starting off with an ARP that says "we recognize we're now an 'inner city' neighbourhood and it makes sense that this neighbourhood densifies over time", which is all fine and dandy. In 2016-17 the City amended the ARP and redesignated properties along 23rd Ave as R-CG, allowing rowhouses to be built. This completely ignored the restrictive covenant on the properties in question; City went ahead and did it anyway.

Then you get adjacent residents in a contextual semi-detached infill who have a new proposed rowhouse going up next door. An argument used against them at the time is "you knew this was coming when you bought into the neighbourhood (ca. 2019)," and their comments are brushed aside, even though the proposed development doesn't meet R-CG requirements. They take it SDAB, development is approved with some conditions to alleviate concerns, and SDAB says "we recognize there's a restrictive covenant in place here but that's a matter for the courts to decide, we're just going to evaluate it against the constraints imposed by the LUB, MDP and MGA".

The developers aren't satisfied though, and working with City administration Direct Control districts at selective sites throughout the neighbourhood are pushed through. DC bylaws which state "thou shalt not build anything less than rowhouses or multiuse apartment buildings", and the rationale for passing these DC bylaws is specifically to help support the developers in their court applications to have the encumbrances on their titles removed! On the one hand you have the City passing ARP amendments and land use redesignations that say "we recognize that there's a restrictive covenant in place here but our policy changes are going to be made irrespective of the civil matter at hand", and then they stick their proverbial thumb on the scales to MAKE these developments happen and help make the restrictive covenant go away.

That is the part that perturbs me most. City administration's power to regulate development is being wielded as a cudgel in a civil matter before the courts, to help push things through, and the DC bylaw process is in my mind being abused to make it happen. The DC districts are supposed to be used where there's some sort of very specific site constraint that make fitting within the LUB land uses infeasible, and that's not the case here at all. The court's ruling discharged the restrictive covenant on the parcels which have had DC bylaws enacted to make their minimum permitted uses higher than the covenant would allow, while the parcels that don't have such DC districts did not mean the judge's criteria to dismiss the restrictive covenant.

Now there's a precedent, a playbook for developers to follow to make restrictive covenants go away if you've got a municipal government that'll play ball, and I think that has huge downstream ramifications that aren't being talked about. You're characterizing this as "wealthy white people demand[ing] that their opinions matter more than others" (which is funny if you know the couple involved because they're not that wealthy and not that "white", lol) while I look at it and see actions on our municipal government's behalf that should be ringing alarm bells for any property owner. I tend to agree with their position on the use of DC districts in this case; to me it's a very insidious, incestuous relationship between developers and City admin being used to brush aside private property interests, to make "problem" people go away.

The use of DC districts in this case really reinforces what I see as a massive problem with the way they're being used. One example nearer my house is the "Courtyard 33" building at the corner of 33rd Ave & 22nd Street SW in Marda Loop. The developer in that case (RndSqr) lobbied council to pass a DC district bylaw which limited the only permissible use on the site to their building. In effect it quashed any opposition to it and functionally it made appealling to the SDAB impossible: SDAB would find that the DP drawings match the bylaw and say "meh, nothing to appeal here". It's a perversion of the entire process that was, to me, all about shutting up dissent. The end product is a POS that many have likened to a shanty from a Brazilian favela:

Spoiler!

It also calls into question "Why do we bother having ARPs?" City admin will unilaterally revise them to suit developer initiatives and goals anyway. Like I said, community "buy-in" gets used to support developments, and ARPs are a huge part of how "buy-in" is measured and used as a criterion for acceptance of a development proposal. But community dissent gets ignored, and isn't a criterion for acceptance or refusal of a development. My neighbourhood CA spent about a decade with City admin writing a draft ARP, and ultimately gave up on completing it and advocating for it to be passed because everyone on the board could see it would just be summarily ignored anyway.

A lot of people in this City feel like their government doesn't give a crap what they have to say and it really bears out when you look at what's happened in Banff Trail, and as much as I never supported bozos like Jeromy Farkas, Sean Chu, Joey Maggs, etc. I do think they have a point and are very effective when they campaign on being voices of dissent on council.

I don't want to talk much about individual people who aren't on CP. That feels gross to me. I agree that the city doesn't care what this group of people has to say and it may be because they are a tiny minority of the community. I hope there is a playbook to make restrictive covenants go away because in many areas, a small group of people are wielding them to delay any progress. We all know that density has to increase in order to make the city financially and environmentally sustainable. Let's just do it and stop asking.



One of the proposed apartments was going to replace a literal meth lab (it has since been demolished after a police raid took out the doors). Can we just move forward and get some decent housing for the people who want to live here?

[timun]

Originally Posted by wireframe

I don't want to talk much about individual people who aren't on CP. That feels gross to me.

I do agree it's kinda gross, but you need to own up to the fact you're the one who said "I'm on the CA board (and thus know the people involved), and they're a small minority of wealthy white NIMBYs" in the first place. If you don't want to talk about 'em don't bring 'em up, and especially don't bring 'em up just to trash 'em.

I agree that the city doesn't care what this group of people has to say and it may be because they are a tiny minority of the community. I hope there is a playbook to make restrictive covenants go away because in many areas, a small group of people are wielding them to delay any progress. We all know that density has to increase in order to make the city financially and environmentally sustainable. Let's just do it and stop asking.

One of the proposed apartments was going to replace a literal meth lab (it has since been demolished after a police raid took out the doors). Can we just move forward and get some decent housing for the people who want to live here?

As I wrote before, I think City administration stepping in to help summarily toss aside a restrictive covenant—to in effect get involved in civil property rights dispute—is a precedent that will lead to unintended consequences. There are places all over the city that have restrictive covenants for a variety of reasons. I think not only of the area I highlighted in Mount Royal that, to me, very obviously received special treatment in a complete about-face of the way the issue in Banff Trail has been treated. Pretty much any neighbourhood built in the last 25 years has restrictive covenants, setting out everything from lot coverage and set backs to utility rights-of-way and park spaces. Nearer to my house I think of River Park, which was private land donated by Eric Harvie to the City of Calgary on the condition that it remain a park; when is a politically-connected, financially-motivated developer going to challenge that restrictive covenant and do whatever the #### they want with a space that was set aside as a public "good"?

"Let's just do it and stop asking" is a super-dangerous and frankly irresponsible way of thinking about development. Part of me thinks "screw it, forget land use bylaws: let 'er buck!" And then we'd find out how people really feel about development in their proverbial back yards...

[Fighting Banana Slug]

I am not that familiar with the Banff Trail situation, but isn't the issue that there is a blanket restrictive covenant that directly conflicts with the ARP and a desire for increased density in that area? In that case I would expect the city to step in and side with more development. I don't see the problem with the existence of other restrictive covenants in the city. It doesn't need to be a "let'er buck" situation. That seems like a bit of a strawman.

[wireframe]

Originally Posted by timun

I do agree it's kinda gross, but you need to own up to the fact you're the one who said "I'm on the CA board (and thus know the people involved), and they're a small minority of wealthy white NIMBYs" in the first place. If you don't want to talk about 'em don't bring 'em up, and especially don't bring 'em up just to trash 'em.


As I wrote before, I think City administration stepping in to help summarily toss aside a restrictive covenant—to in effect get involved in civil property rights dispute—is a precedent that will lead to unintended consequences. There are places all over the city that have restrictive covenants for a variety of reasons. I think not only of the area I highlighted in Mount Royal that, to me, very obviously received special treatment in a complete about-face of the way the issue in Banff Trail has been treated. Pretty much any neighbourhood built in the last 25 years has restrictive covenants, setting out everything from lot coverage and set backs to utility rights-of-way and park spaces. Nearer to my house I think of River Park, which was private land donated by Eric Harvie to the City of Calgary on the condition that it remain a park; when is a politically-connected, financially-motivated developer going to challenge that restrictive covenant and do whatever the #### they want with a space that was set aside as a public "good"?

"Let's just do it and stop asking" is a super-dangerous and frankly irresponsible way of thinking about development. Part of me thinks "screw it, forget land use bylaws: let 'er buck!" And then we'd find out how people really feel about development in their proverbial back yards...

I don't want to talk about the people involved anymore because I have nothing good to say about them. As Fighting Banana Slug says, there is a specific situation in Banff Trail that needs to be addressed and it is not a slippery slope to rampant over-development. It is not the same as a park in your area being developed into condos. I think it is irresponsible that the city is letting this small group of people slow down progress that needs to happen because they don't want the development to be in their (and my) backyard, even if that means replacing a meth lab with a safe place for people to live.

[powderjunkie]

This may not be totally rational, but I don't really mind the Mt Royal NIMBYsm. They might be the one time where 'character of the community' is actually a valid argument (even if it feels a little gross) - compared to 50s/60s 'hoods where the character preservation is for decrepit bungalows on 50 foot lots.

Moreover, I'm not sure that getting some higher density in there would be much of a net benefit. Realistically we'd see a handful luxury low-medium density developments that would otherwise be built elsewhere where they could arguably play an important role in helping other areas develop/revitalize (obviously a complex discussion, but looking at somewhere like West District where some posh developments may be paving the way

In terms of taxation Mt Royal probably aren't paying their fair share as there are no economies of scale for any of the infrastructure there - I'd definitely be in favour of a super-low-density modifier for their property taxes.


Communities like Banff Trail are exactly where we can make major gains on missing-middle housing. I get some of the concerns, but often they are short-sighted and contradictory. Complaing about parking OR traffic, but you can't bitch about both. Mandating parking minimums is why we end up with so much traffic. The real solution is to effectively cost parking, but somehow I doubt Karen will be too stoked about choosing between paying for a street parking pass and clearing the useless #### out of her garage so she can park for free and stop being part of the problem herself.

[Roughneck]

The Hope Street and Royal Ave Intersection has two lots that were perfect for some mid-density development, similar scale to the buildings across the street, but one lot saw a hilariously gaudy mansion be put up and I can’t imagine the lot next to it will be much better. Hell, a couple duplexes would double the density of the block.