Proposed Citywide Rezoning
Referring to the March and April Echo editions on the topic of the Proposed Citywide Rezoning, the Public Hearing on April 22, 2024, and the subsequent decision by Council will have happened by the time you read this. Although there has been significant support for improving housing affordability, Council will have heard from many Community Associations and Calgary residents that they are opposed to the Citywide rezoning. Thanks also to those Oakridge residents who let us know your views. Much appreciated.
We had invited our Councillor to an ‘Open House’ at Oakridge so that she could listen to and answer questions. She declined our invitation but did put on an online 60-minute discussion on Monday, April 8 between her and City planners on the rezoning. We did submit some questions ahead of time, but these were not answered. However, we did learn some interesting perspectives, especially on the continuum of housing supply and on the ‘Missing Middle’, and on ‘Fact and Feelings’ from our Councillor’s closing comment.
We will be studying the Council’s decision and its potential impact to our neighbourhood and our preparation for a Local Area Plan with our District 32 neighbours.
Road Safety
As we move into spring and summer, we will have even more people out and about on our pathways, pedestrian crossings, at intersections without crossings, and even children playing in their front driveways. We encourage all residents to drive with care, obey the posted speed limits, and avoid distracted driving. If you have any specific concerns, please raise these with the City at 3-1-1 and share it with us at https://oakridgecommunity.ca/local-concerns/.
We have recently had incidents on Palliser Drive that we are aware of. Thankfully, this time, no one was hurt. We do seem to have relatively high traffic volumes during school opening and closing hours. We will be working with Louis Riel School Administration and other interested parties to help get the message out to drivers, parents, pupils, and children to be alert.
Members of the Calgary Police Service have also been present assisting with monitoring, education, and compliance enforcement. However, this can only be intermittent. So, we are again requesting the City to improve some of the high pedestrian traffic interactions with various forms of road calming.
Co-op Development at Southland Drive and 24 Street
Co-op construction is continuing, and they remain on track for a spring 2025 completion date. Unfortunately, there is no update on the planned subdivision regarding the NW corner of the site where the accommodation units are planned.
RioCan Development at Glenmore Landing
Notwithstanding other Community Associations concerns with the proposed towers, our main OCA concern remains the impact on traffic with this proposed re-development combined with other planned developments in the area. We have again requested the ‘Traffic Impact Assessment’, but it is still in discussions with the City and RioCan. We did have some dialogue with City staff, and they have encouraged Urban Systems who represent RioCan to meet with us but to date we have not had a response.
Other Oakridge Impacted Facilities
We are still waiting for some road calming measures that were anticipated to be in place by the end of 2023. Please let us know if you have any other infrastructure requests at https://oakridgecommunity.ca/local-concerns/ as well as documenting with 3-1-1.
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