Over the past few months, you may have gotten a sense of change in our neighbourhood. I think most of the changes that we have seen make us very happy. We’ve seen some fantastic new businesses open up in our neighbourhood, we are working with the City to revitalize our green spaces, we continue to invest in our community association facility, and you can tell by walking around the neighbourhood that people are putting love, pride, and a lot of hard work and investment into their homes.
Sometimes, however, changes can be more complex and challenging. Densification is perhaps the biggest concern that we’ve heard through our residents in the past year, and it is likely that densification will remain one of the largest issues that our community needs to contend with for years to come. How densification manifests in our neighbourhood will largely be driven by the City of Calgary Local Area Plan (Heritage Communities), but we have also seen developers begin to apply for R2 (multi-family) zoning in R1 lots. The drive for densification is real, and there are many different emotions and opinions as to how our neighbourhood could or should respond and evolve to these forces.
In witnessing the Guidebook for Great Communities discussions at the end of Nenshi’s last term, I realized that the communities who had the most impact in responding to these forces were the ones who were coordinated and who had a common vision for what they wanted their neighbourhood to look like.
To help ensure that our community is one of those communities that can respond to changes meaningfully, our community association has developed a civic affairs working group who is tasked with engaging and advocating for our community. We are a small but passionate group, and we are looking for more people to participate. If you have a passion for safer crosswalks, zoning, building, and advocating for our community vision, ensuring that cell towers obey city by-laws, creating a safer neighbourhood for kids, or any other of the myriad of civic issues that come up, please reach out to me at [email protected], or to our civic affairs group at [email protected].
Jason Carling
President, Willow Ridge Community Association
