Candidate Surveys Ward 1
Responses are presented in alphabetical order by candidate last name and include all responses received as of Oct 5, 2010. We will continue to upload additional responses as time allows.
Harper, Chris
- Do you support a long-term lease for Race City as a track and advanced driving facility in Calgary?
Based on the information available to me, I do not support a long-term lease for Race City. I do support working with Race City officials to identify a more appropriate location for the venue; and during that process, establish a short term lease for the present leased property. I understand that this issue has been surrounded with information that may not represent the whole picture. Unfortunately, these facts are not available to me as a member of the public. If I am able to discover new facts regarding Race City, I will inform residents of my ward and seek their input in what position they feel is best.
2. Does the City have a responsibility to play a role in preserving heritage sites? If so, what role?
Having attended the various Heritage Roundtables organized by the Federation of Calgary Communities and the City of Calgary, I’ve come to appreciate our heritage sites more. While the City clearly plays a role in designating places (no just buildings) as Heritage Sites, it also has a key role to play beyond that.
The most important role the City plays in preserving heritage sites is to encourage and create continued uses for these important places. It is not enough to designate a place a heritage site and let it be. These sites must continue to have a purpose and use by neighbourhoods. Take Memorial Park Library for example. It’s not just Alberta’s very first public library. It’s also a place where the community gathers, residents learn, and where our heritage is preserved yet still actively providing value. That to me is the responsibility the City has in preserving our heritage sites.
3. What strategies do you have to create more pedestrian and bicycle oriented infrastructure?
I think it’s important to realize that simply painting lines on the sides of roads is not considered creating pedestrian and bicycle friendly infrastructure.
My first priority is to look at how we care for our current pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. Maintenance of pathways; especially during the winter months, is a very important yet often neglected service many Calgarians rely upon. Expanding snow clearing of pathways to our major communities (such as Tuscany) is important to ensuring that we reduce the barrier to commuting via alternative means.
I’d also want to ensure that our future pathway and cycling infrastructure is planned and well integrated to existing systems. It’s important to me that we focus on using what we already have the most before we rely on new infrastructure. This is the fastest and most efficient way to increase our pedestrian and bicycle oriented infrastructure without incurring long delays and high costs.
4. Do you support urban farming, including urban chickens?
The most organic food we can have is that which we grow ourselves. There is no need for certifications or labels on potatoes grown in a community garden or in your own backyard. You know exactly what you’re putting in your body.
I feel the issue of urban farming has been defined as “chickens”; however, believe it is much more than that.
I support urban farming projects such as community gardens. These projects create an opportunity that brings the community together to build and sustain its own food.
At this time I am not able to support urban chickens. I would support exploring other options which can help us provide our own food sources locally in Calgary; however, these sources must be sensitive to the urban context within which many of us live.
5. What have you done to address homelessness and urban poverty in Calgary? What will you do?
I annually donate financial and in-kind goods to the Calgary Food Bank to support the sustenance of Calgarians who are homeless or in poverty. Most importantly, I’ve worked to understand better the real factors which trap our neighbours in the cycles of homelessness or poverty. It is now clear to me that many of our neighbours do not choose to be in poverty or to not have a home. Many are trapped in a cycle which prevents them from leading healthy and dignified lives.
Vibrant Calgary Communities has been a key organization in helping me understand better the issues surrounding poverty. I fully support the efforts of the VCC and will continue to protect affordable public transportation as well as the Fair Calgary Program which ensures all City amenities are accessible to individuals and families who would not otherwise be able to afford them.
I also support and will continue to enable the Calgary Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. This plan helps move people towards self-sufficiency rather than enable continued dependence on the charity of others.
Both of these organizations work to permanently end poverty and homelessness and I will act to ensure they do.
6. Is urban sprawl a problem for Calgary? If so, what have you done? What will you do about it?
Urban sprawl is clearly a problem for Calgary today and promises to be an even greater (and more expensive) problem in the future if we do not respond now.
One of my key commitments is to ensure that the City of Calgary does more with what it already has. This applies not just too how our tax and fee dollars are spent, but also to how we use the land we have available. I strongly support the legalization and streamlining of secondary suites in Calgary. These suites are an exceptional way for us to sensibly increase density while also reducing the visible impacts on mature communities. It’s clear the process needs a renovation and we must determine how best to protect the safety of the approximately 35,000 people who occupy illegal suites today.
Also, infill developments are another way we can revitalize our mature communities and make them attractive and affordable places for young families to move into. This can be done without increasing Calgary’s sprawl and uses more effectively the land we already have. It also uses existing infrastructure which supports my commitment to doing more with what already exists.
It’s important that infill development is sensitive to the context of its neighbourhood to protect privacy and envelop size. This is why I strongly support the continued refinement of the discretionary and permitted uses defined in the Land Use Bylaw for infill developments. With the right balance, we can have context sensitive revitalization of our mature communities and also greater choice for Calgary home buyers.
7. How will you make developers of new subdivisions pay the full, life-cycle costs of their projects?
There is a cost and will be greater if we continue to focus on growing the City of Calgary out. Industry, communities, and the City of Calgary are in agreement that growth must offer a diverse set of housing choices which are both affordable and sustainable.
Before additional costs are placed on greenfield developments, we need to determine in a transparent manner to all, what exactly those costs are. At present, the number being used is $10,000 per new home built; however, it is not clear where or how this much cited amount came from. If developers and new home buyers are going to be made to pay for the life-cycle costs of their communities, they have a right to know the true cost and how it was determined.
I do feel that it is important that new communities share in the cost of servicing them; however, I feel strongly that those costs must be transparent, accurate and fairly determined. At this time, I do not feel this is the case.
8. Would you extend the city’s recycling plan to include apartment buildings and/or organics?
Absolutely I would support this. We are far behind other major Canadian municipalities when it comes to increasing our waste diversion. The introduction of Calgary’s blue-bin recycling program brought us into the year 1995; however, we can do much better than that.
The City of Calgary has a target of diverting 80 percent of our waste by 2020 and I strongly believe we can achieve that. Much of our waste is organic, which can be used in our gardens and public spaces through composting. There is also a market that will pay for this commodity which gives us the opportunity to turn our waste into a revenue generating commodity.
9. What will you do to help the province and city work together on the current SE Ring Road plan?
As was announced by the Province of Alberta in April 2010, the South East section of the Calgary ring road will consist of a P3 Partnership. It is being expedited to take advantage of the lower constructions costs currently being offered by the market and is estimated to cost $769 million.
I do not believe that the Province of Alberta and City of Calgary are the only ones who need to work together. The project is based on the P3 model and so the private partnerships must also work together with the City of Calgary and the Province of Alberta.
With partnerships such as the SE ring road it is important that each party be held accountable for its commitments under the agreement. I’m prepared to support this accountability through regular monitoring of the project status and will respond proactively as a member of Council to any issues which may impact the project negatively.
10. Do you support legalization of secondary suits in all existing neighbourhoods?
I believe secondary suites should be legal in all existing neighbourhoods. I also believe the amount of secondary suites in some districts should be monitored through licensing to ensure that densification is responsible and sensitive to those who already live in those neighbourhoods. By making secondary suites legal in all existing neighbourhoods and by responsibly controlling their approval, we can protect the character of communities while also increasing affordable and safe residences for Calgarians.
I also support the removal of secondary suites from Council’s agenda. Council adds very little value to the process by politicizing secondary suites approvals through the “spot zoning” debate. I support moving the approval of secondary suites to bylaw services who can validate and enforce the strictest safety requirements for occupants. Licensing of secondary suites also gives the City of Calgary the authority to remove the secondary suite permit in the event a landlord is not properly monitoring his/her tenants.
Scott, Bill
1. Do you support a long-term lease for Race City as a track and advanced driving facility in Calgary?
Yes, but only if the land has no predetermined future use and with an equitable lease arrangement that requires no subsidies or concessions to be given on the part of the City.
2. Does the City have a responsibility to play a role in preserving heritage sites? If so, what role?
Our past is the base for our future! I believe it is the City’s role, in conjunction with private and public organizations to protect the fabric of Calgary’s colourful past by identifying, retaining and overseeing the respectful restoration and repurposing of these site to ensure they remain an active part of city’s contemporary development and a statement to Calgary’s character.
3. What strategies do you have to create more pedestrian and bicycle oriented infrastructure?
Pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure must form an integral part of Calgary’s overall mobility strategy. Existing pathways must be upgraded to accommodate the safe use by both pedestrian and cyclist. I support the “road diet” concept and its ability to accommodate on-street bicycle infrastructure. Local and regional pathways need to be connected to provide convenient and effective access to and through the city centre. I also support Parks Foundation Calgary’s initiative to create a city perimeter pathway system.
4. Do you support urban farming, including urban chickens?
Urban farming has two components – crops and animals and they should be evaluated individually.
Crop farming on one’s own property affords many benefits – an alternative food source as well as the personal satisfaction that goes with creating something.
Crop farming in a communal sense as a community garden is a great opportunity to bring citizens together, creating a sense of community through sharing and nurturing neighbourly caring.
Animals on the other hand brings a number of issues that our forefathers obviously most have realized when they banned them from the urban environment. Before going forward, we should go back to understand the lessons of the past.
5. What have you done to address homelessness and urban poverty in Calgary? What will you do?
I recognize my personal and social responsibility to society’s less fortunate through contributing time and treasure to a number of Calgary’s incredibly dedicated and professional social agencies. While continuing to do this on a personal level, as a member of Council I would want to ensure that the city’s social agencies receive continued funding from our tax base because these agencies are the most cost effective way to deliver hope, help and change to Calgary’s less fortunate. I would also want to minimize the City’s bureaucracy to allow innovative solutions to be fast-tracked into reality.
6. Is urban sprawl a problem for Calgary? If so, what have you done? What will you do about it?
First let’s get the terminology straight – urban sprawl is a result of not planning for complete communities, not providing diversity and affordability in housing choice, not integrating transportation infrastructure to accommodate all mobility modes, not providing for local employment and shopping opportunities, not providing essential community amenities like schools, parks, libraries and protective services.
Urban growth on the other hand is when you do!
Past urban sprawl should not keep us from future urban growth.
7. How will you make developers of new subdivisions pay the full, life-cycle costs of their projects?
The infrastructure costs associated with a new subdivision are either installation or replacement related. In a greenfield subdivision that has no infrastructure, the developer, not the City, created the need, therefore the developer should pay for it. Everything we have and use today has a life cycle associated so when the warranty expires, it’s the owner’s responsibility to fix it. No different with infrastructure. Since the City accepts the infrastructure based on its own standards of quality and serviceability, so when the warranty is over it must accept the responsibility for the repair or replacement.
8. Would you extend the city’s recycling plan to include apartment buildings and/or organics?
Calgarians have embraced recycling and the reduction waste to the land fill site has been remarkable. So to include multi-family, commercial and industrial as well as construction and organic wastes in the program is a no brainer!
9. What will you do to help the province and city work together on the current SE Ring Road plan?
Get the two of them out of their “silos” for some productive dialogue!
10. Do you support legalization of secondary suits in all existing neighbourhoods?
Secondary suites are a solution to affordable housing. They can be compatible in any neighbourhood if you address the three main issues – safety, inconsiderate tenants who have no tie to the community and parking.
Safety – they must comply with the building code as it relates to fire safety
Tenants – the landlord, must own the house and resident in it on a full time basis
Parking – there must be at least 1 on-site parking stall for use by the suite
Since a secondary suite is in fact a business operated out of the home, it should be considered as a home occupation for which the land use bylaw permits subject to certain rules. Like a home occupation, a secondary suite would be approved through the discretionary development/building permit process, not land use. It would be issued for a term no longer than 5 years and would be renewable upon application to ensure on-going compliance with the permit conditions and compatibility with the neighbourhood.
Vandenbrink, Judi
1. Do you support a long-term lease for Race City as a track and advanced driving facility in Calgary?
I don’t think a long term lease of this land is appropriate as it will cost too much to re-develop the Shepard Landfill and the storm water retention pond that has been planned for this area. Race City Speedway needs to move to another location. I think there is a need for this type of a facility in Calgary and from what I understand Race City needs some major upgrades. It is best to move on to another location and start anew.
2. Does the City have a responsibility to play a role in preserving heritage sites? If so, what role?
Yes the City should have a role in preserving heritage sites. The City has an inventory of our heritage sites and the stories from our past. It is important to remember where we came from and the pioneers who created Calgary. The City should continue to inventory the historical sites and restore some of the better known properties (City Hall etc.). Other properties could be sold with the conditions that they be restored, keeping the original concept intact and staying on the historical sites list.
3. What strategies do you have to create more pedestrian and bicycle oriented infrastructure?
I‘ve travelled to places like The Netherlands and saw how well planned mixed use transportation systems can work. I would like to see more cycling lanes on our roadways (next to the car lanes). We also need separate walking pathways. Safety must be the number one priority for cyclists and pedestrians. If cyclists could ride their bikes on designated cycle pathways next to the roadway they could ride faster than the 20 km/h speed limits that are on our existing pathways. People could stroll the walking pathways with their children or pets and not have the concern of a bike hitting them.
4. Do you support urban farming, including urban chickens?
I think it would be valuable to our society to have more urban farming in our city as long as there are restrictions. Back yard gardening provides urbanites a way to grow their own food and learn about Calgary soils and what grows in the area. This provides a great connection to the land and the need to be careful with chemicals. Gardens connect people with their environment, provides some exercise, can be social, and provides fresh vegetables which are good for your health.
We have a lot of rooftops that could be used as green roofs. We could use this space grow food. A green roof also moderate urban heat island and is useful to reduce storm water runoff issues.
I don’t think chickens are any different than keeping other pets. There needs to be restrictions on how many we are allowing citizens (as we have with other pets) and owners need to be responsible to clean up after the animals.
5. What have you done to address homelessness and urban poverty in Calgary? What will you do?
I’ve provided food for the food bank and participated in many fundraisers including the “Food for Fame” fundraiser for the last four years. I’ve taken food from events to the Mustard Seed so that it did not go to waste.
On September 9th I attended a Night Tour offered by Homeless Awareness Calgary Committee and Alpha House. This tour was led by people who lived on the streets but were able to get their lives back in order. I learned that there are many reasons for people to end up on the streets. Some are due to a tragic circumstance in their lives. I believe that we need to have more accessible/free therapy for people who have survived a tragedy. I also think that we would not have working poor if we offered all workers a living wage and had affordable housing available. If I am elected I would encourage affordable housing options including secondary suites. I would ask council to go to the Province to consider an increase in the minimum wage to a living wage so that we could reduce spending on places like homeless shelters and food banks.
6. Is urban sprawl a problem for Calgary? If so, what have you done? What will you do about it?
Urban sprawl is a problem in Calgary and is causing transportation and other infrastructure issues. Almost every person I’ve spoken to in Ward 1 has mentioned transportation and transit as an issue for their area. I live in Bowness which is still classified as inner city. I work from home so I do not have to commute to my job. It would be good for more people to have a “telework” option.
I would like to see more mixed density development and re-development. We should be looking at cities like Portland, Oregon for examples of mixed density housing that has worked very well. We should implement the examples that are in Plan It for sustainable development.
If we built sustainable, energy efficient buildings with solid building envelopes and used alternative energy sources to offset our carbon fuels we would be providing a new economy for Calgarians, more comfortable buildings and save homeowners money in the long term.
People in Calgary want their single detached homes with their yard perhaps because they have not been shown many other options. If we planned our neighbourhoods better we could build communities where there would be green spaces and gardens. The new communities would require less up keep and would give citizens more time for things they enjoy.
7. How will you make developers of new subdivisions pay the full, life-cycle costs of their projects?
Developers and home buyers need to be aware that they are paying for more than a house, they are also paying for all the infrastructure that is available (roads, water and sewer lines, libraries etc. and their maintenance). The farther away from the city centre the development is planned, the more infrastructure that is required. If a developer and homeowners choose to live in an area then they should be obligated to also pay for the services, which includes maintenance. Developers need to get better recognition for good work when they provide good work. We are a city of very educated people and we need to demand the best, that includes better building standards.
8. Would you extend the city’s recycling plan to include apartment buildings and/or organics?
I would extend the recycling plan to include apartment buildings and other multi-family developments as it would be a good next step to our recycling program. I would also encourage the collection of organics if there is a place where we could set up a good composting program. Organics are the largest weight of garbage collected so it makes good economic sense to find a better way of using this product than land filling it.
9. What will you do to help the province and city work together on the current SE Ring Road plan?
From what I’ve read about the SE Ring Road I think the Province has an obligation to uphold the promises made to all the industries that have relocated to the Shepard Industrial Park. When the area was advertised it was sold as a new industrial/transportation hub with easy access to the new Ring Road. The key SE interchange to this area was at 61st Street and 106 Avenue. Now this interchange has been deleted from the plans. This must be reconsidered as the interchange was one of the reasons that industries moved into this location. I will work with the 84th Street SE Access Association to be sure I do all I can to put the interchange back on the plan. A possible solution, if the interchange cannot be safely built, would be to substantially improve the road network within the area. Calgary does not need to have a reputation of making industries pay the price of poor management.
10. Do you support legalization of secondary suits in all existing neighbourhoods?
Secondary suites might not be suitable for all existing neighbourhoods but should be legalized for most neighbourhoods. We need to develop a list of criteria for the suites and start allowing our inspectors to get out and make sure the existing suites are safe. We need more affordable housing and secondary suites would be a good start.
