CALGARY’S NEW ‘BURBS // REAL ESTATE
CALGARY’S NEW ‘BURBS “MORE VIBRANT, DIVERSE AND SUSTAINABLE THAN EVER BEFORE” BY JOHN HARDY
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s Calgary dynamically grows north, south, east, west and beyond, communities like Alpine Park, Wolf Willow, Belvedere Rise and others are booming as Calgary’s new ‘burbs. It’s complicated, strategic and it doesn’t just happen. “The City looks at many factors when planning for growth and change,” says Matthew Sheldrake, Calgary’s manager of Growth and Strategic Services, “working together with developers to ensure that Calgary’s new communities are more vibrant, diverse and sustainable than ever before. “Once every two years, as part of the Citywide Growth Strategy for making growth budget decisions, the City receives business cases from developers interested in initiating new community developments. The submissions address key city-building, servicing, market
and financial criteria. Council’s decisions then drive new community investments and planning approvals, which set the stage for infrastructure installation, home construction and first occupancies.” Despite the time-sensitivity of developer business plans and schedules, the planning and engineering work prior to business case approval, takes about three to five years. Once a business case is approved, it’s another two to four years until the first residents move in. Alpine Park, Calgary’s new west-end expansion is quickly becoming one of the City’s popular new ‘burbs and also creating an innovative, new planning and development trend. New Urbanism – a contemporary development phenomenon and an alternative to traditional single-use, low-density development. The core principles of New
ABOVE: ALPINE PARK.
BUSINESSINCALGARY.COM // BUSINESS IN CALGARY // JANUARY 2022
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