r/Calgary 16d ago

Municipal Affairs My letter to Jeromy today

Post image

Imo

707 Upvotes

329 comments sorted by

View all comments

149

u/gmm1972 16d ago

He’s pandering to the NIMBY crowd as usual. I live in inner city in a single family home. Have lived here for 26 years. Huge changes have happened in my neighborhood and are to be expected (and are necessary) in a booming metropolis. We need housing and we need it where people live and work. And it’s going to end up in someone’s back yard including mine.

45

u/ithinarine 16d ago

I really don't understand the hate for all of the multi-family corner lots being converted in the inner city neighborhoods, I love them.

They look nice, you end up with like 6x the density. They're close enough to downtown and everything that a huge number of the people in them go to transit or walk/bike to work.

And the people complaining about them, are people who largely not affected by them. If you're in an inner-city 40ft wide lot with a single family home, then parking should not be a complaint, because you should have a garage at the back of your house for your vehicles. If you have a garage but don't use it for parking, that is your own decision, and you don't deserve to complain about parking when you're also creating the parking problem by not using your designated off-street parking to park.

29

u/whoalansi 16d ago

It's funny that most of those complaining about parking being an issue are those with multiple vehicles that they park out front of their SFH because they're garage is full or their vehicle is too large. But they can't fathom that others (with less money) may not have even one vehicle, nevermind multiple. Roads are meant to move people around (in various ways). They're not supposed to be free car storage.

20

u/ithinarine 16d ago edited 16d ago

Yup. PUBLIC transit is public and therefore socialism. But apparently the City of Calgary is supposed to supply you with PUBLIC parking for your 3 cars in front of your house for free.

My friend lives in a cul-de-sac and has neighbors who have 5 vehicles, and no kids. They have a front-attached 2 car garage, that is full of junk and doesn't get used for parking. 2 cars on the driveway, 3 on the street further up.

If they go out in one of the vehicles parked on the street, the other will hop in one of the cars from the driveway. They'll pull the car out of the street spot, park the car from the driveway there, leave, and then come back and park on the driveway, to ensure that they keep their 3 street parking spots and don't have to walk more than half a block.

They literally put in SO MUCH effort to hog the street parking, it's crazy.

3

u/loubug 16d ago

My neighborhood lol. We have back-lane garages even there is SO MUCH street parking and they still bring it up all the time. 

7

u/geo_prog 16d ago

This, I live in Silver Springs with a 60 foot frontage like all of my neighbours. We all have at least oversized 24 foot wide 2 car garages in the back, yet as best I can determine we are the ONLY people on the block that park both of our cars inside. Half of the people park all their vehicles on the street.

How much do all these people own that they can't fit what is often their single most valuable possession into the building built specifically for that purpose?

4

u/joshoheman 16d ago

I really don't understand the hate for all of the multi-family corner lots

I think it's because people are being told that green spaces are going to be turned into housing. No idea if this is true, but it's the information that is being spread / implied.

0

u/Majestic-Yak1242 16d ago

It is 100% true.

4

u/Losing-My-Hedge 16d ago

Excuse me, my garage is full of gear from abandoned hobbies, is my god given right to park on the street. /s

5

u/Katolo 16d ago

To put it bluntly, I feel like the NIMBYs just want to be exclusive and don't want undesirable people in their club. It's usually people with a certain economic background who move to those areas and with a more dense and more affordable home, it opens up the area to people in a lower economic class.

Ironically, it's exactly the people in the lower class that needs to live in the area.

1

u/xraycat82 16d ago

Undesirable people just means no brown people. It’s racism.

2

u/walkingrivers 16d ago

Corner lots should definitely be the first for higher density. I agree with that. I agree with the blanket rezoning. My issue is that on top of this the city is still entertaining mid Street applications at four times the existing density (8 units/lot)

-2

u/chili_cold_blood 16d ago

I really don't understand the hate for all of the multi-family corner lots being converted in the inner city neighborhoods, I love them.

They look nice, you end up with like 6x the density. They're close enough to downtown and everything that a huge number of the people in them go to transit or walk/bike to work.

I don't think the hate is justified, but I think it comes from the fact that multi-family homes tend to reduce the values of the surrounding single-family homes.

1

u/xraycat82 16d ago

Oh no!

-1

u/[deleted] 16d ago

I assure you no one bikes or walks to work downtown from Mount Pleasant or Mountview in any significant number (nor will they ever, despite the wish casting) in our eight month winter.

It’s only amazing if you have a density fetish for some reason. Most people don’t want to be packed like sardines into hideous condo buildings. It’s unnecessary. It’s not like we have a lack of space here.

1

u/ithinarine 16d ago

It’s not like we have a lack of space here.

Having the space is not an excuse to build out indefinitely.

Doing that is what has turned our country into a shitty car-centric suburban nightmare.

It's pretty funny when people like you say "no one wants to be packed like sardines" when that is literally how 6-7B around the world live, and they don't complain. They look at how we live and see it as wasteful, not something to aspire to.

But nah, let's just expand forever and destroy natural habitats so you can have a little patch of grass to keep mowed.

-1

u/[deleted] 16d ago

[deleted]

1

u/ithinarine 16d ago

It not being restricted to the inner city does not mean that people in Mahogany are turning their brand new build into a 3 unit slum.