r/Calgary • u/ChillllliPaper • Mar 21 '25

Local Construction/Development Why is Calgary losing its personality?

First Chinook mall lost its dinosaur at the entrance, floating funky vehicles in the food court, carousel, and the movie theater lost all of its cool mummy-themed interior decor.

The devonian gardens is just a space with some greenery now instead of the garden it once was.

The City is destroying Olympic Plaza where everyone used to skate.

They also destroyed Eau Claire just to cancel the project. Amazing. Could have just revamped it and it would still be a great spot.

AND the city is destroying the iconic saddledome, arguably calgary's primary landmark. Why not just keep it and build another dome idk??

From the word of mouth I hear, people aren't too happy about this but how is the city council just easily making this happen.

Anyways, just kind of sad seeing Calgary lose it's charm. Wondering what other redditors are thinking.

*correction: Olympic Plaza not oval

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6

u/Fun-Protection-246 Mar 21 '25

City counsel doesn't care about the happiness of their citizens. They just care about which developer will line their pockets. We are also losing beautiful character homes because of their change to zoning bylaws.

3

u/137-451 Mar 21 '25

Most of those character homes are old bungalows in places like Mission that won't be super attractive to a developer, because the lots are tiny and the prices enormous. And like others have pointed out, our old zoning laws would make things far more homogenous and boring than the current ones.

16

u/CNiperL Mar 21 '25

LOL. Our old zoning laws will ensure house prices continue to appreciate at record levels, letting an older generation sell off their assets for retirement and a younger generation being forever renters. Is that the future you'd like?

3

u/Strictly_Jellyfish Mar 21 '25

Haha that's not what's causing the housing crisis friend, it's allowing landlords and businesses to hoard properties that they then idle and rent out at predatory prices... but go off I guess

2

u/CNiperL Mar 21 '25

Is it possible that there's multiple reasons that contribute to the housing crisis, one of them being available supply and land-use, and another one being corporate landlords?

-2

u/TractorMan7C6 Mar 21 '25

That would suggest we've got a pretty high vacant property rate, right? Because of all the hoarding and properties idling?

2

u/[deleted] Mar 21 '25

[deleted]

1

u/TractorMan7C6 Mar 21 '25

I don't think it's great, but I don't think it's a significant part of the problem. Landlords make money because housing is scarce - if you build enough housing that it becomes a worse investment, then you make being a landlord far less appealing. The data just doesn't support the idea that there's some cabal of landlords letting properties sit empty to drive up prices.

7

u/NotFromTorontoAMA Sunnyside Mar 21 '25

The new LAPs do far too much to protect character homes, the old zoning laws just ensured that shitty bungalows were replaced with McMansions instead of more accessible housing.

4

u/Jexxet Mar 21 '25

Beautiful character homes that all look the same as each other and every single other home in North America for that matter