Annual General Meeting
The Annual General Meeting is on Wednesday, November 21. Doors open at 6 pm, meeting starts at 7 pm. Come early as there usually is a line up at the door near the time of the start of the meeting. Enjoy the reception prior to the meeting, buy/renew your membership, see displays, purchase our award-winning history book and meet other community people.
Our AGM’s are fun events. Besides the normal AGM stuff, we use this opportunity to celebrate our community and what we have achieved during the last year. This is also the 40th anniversary year of the incorporation of our community association and the 30th anniversary year of our community centre. Come help us celebrate our community!
Would you like to get involved?
The AGM is also an opportunity for people to learn more about the community association and identify volunteer opportunities. Besides the board, there are committees and special events where you can get involved. Two committees are active year-round: the Heritage Committee and the Planning and Development Committee. We also have two special events: the Spring Fling in April and Mission Possible (Neighbour Day) in June. The Community Clean Up in September is another special event that needs volunteers. From time to time we have other events we need volunteers for such as the recent cannabis information event. If you have questions on these opportunities, please e-mail me at [email protected].
The Passing of a Long-time Volunteer
Collette Mansfield passed away in September. She was a long-time volunteer of our community association. During the early days of our community newsletter, we used to deliver it by hand and she was one of the volunteers who did that. In recent years, she has volunteered for our casinos. She used to like to work in the Countroom. She also liked to arrive early and have dinner with other casino volunteers. She was a patron of Joyce on 4th. Even though she did not drink alcoholic beverages, it was one of her personal social activities. They treated her very well and would serve her coffee right away. She was a special person and she will be missed.
Cannabis Information Event
We held a successful information session on retail cannabis. Matthew Zabloski from the City of Calgary did an excellent presentation and we had a great panel of people who provided additional information. Debbie White of New Leaf Cannabis and Adam Coates of West Leaf Cannabis provided information from a retail shop perspective. Steve Wong of Drug + Bean (Holy Cross) provided information on the use of cannabis and its effect on your body. Nick Moore of Youthlink Education CPS provided information on the impact of use by young people. We thank them all for making this a successful event.
Sapna Sharma connected with the presenters. Amanda West, Rick Williams and Sander Jansen helped during the evening. Thanks to Nicole Butz for helping identify potential presenters. A big thank you to Drug + Bean Mission Pharmacy for providing the coffee and tea.
Proposed Development at 25th Avenue and 5th Street SW
Although we do not yet know when the public hearing on this matter will be held, this is still a very active file for us. Since the beginning of this process, the community association has made it clear that we do not support this land use change to accommodate a building that would be three times as high as allowed under the current land use. However, we also have made it clear that we are not against the proposed use – seniors living.
We have heard the proponents of this proposal are saying the community association does not represent the community. I believe they conveniently are mixing up the height issue with the use issue. We have done extensive consultations over the 40 years of his community association including during recent years and the number one issue in this community from a redevelopment perspective is height. I have been involved with the community association for 36 years and the message from the community consistently is the height issue. So the community association is correctly representing the number one planning and development issue in this community in regards to this proposal.
Ultimately there will be a Public Hearing of City Council to approve or not to approve the Land Use change that is required in order for what is proposed to be built. This means this will be a political decision. This could be before year end or in the new year. When the public hearing is scheduled, there will be an ad in a Thursday paper before the hearing. Anyone interested can submit a letter prior to the hearing and can speak for 5 minutes at the hearing. We will keep you informed as we find out when that is going to happen.
The current Land Use is M-C2 with a height limitation of 16 metres and a FAR (Floor Area Ratio) of 2.5. They are applying for Land Use District MU-1 which allows a height of 45 meters and FAR of 7.5, so around three times the current approved Land Use. While we support increased density and the Area Redevelopment Plan supports increased density, historically as already stated the number one planning and development issue in our community has been height. Our message has been consistent over the years when proposals such as this one come forward.
