ECCA’s Annual General Meeting on October 7, 2021
We had several guests join us for introductions, information, and questions and answers including:
- Dru Mohler, who is our Neighbourhood Partnership Coordinator from the City of Calgary. Dru is a regular participant at all our Board meetings and is a core member of our team, helping us to liaise with all the various City agencies that provide services to communities.
- Constable Arthur Rekshta of the Calgary Police Service, our Community Resources Officer.
- Dennis Hoffert, Stephanie Lake, and Natalie Coombs from the Eau Claire Improvement Project, which is the collective name for the four major projects currently happening in Eau Claire: Plaza Redevelopment, Flood Resiliency, Jaipur Bridge replacement, and the 3rd Avenue Walking + Wheeling project.
President’s Report
- Eau Claire is Calgary’s smallest community at approximately 1,600 residents and it’s important for us to band together to keep the city and developers on-track to create things that support us as a distinct residential neighbourhood.
- ECCA’s primary mandates are Review, Speak, and Gather
– We Review all development proposals submitted to the city and we stay on top of proposed projects coming to our neighbourhood.
– We Speak for our community perspective on everything that can impact our residents.
– We Gather to foster a sense of community and collegiality.
- During normal times, our event calendar has something for everyone, and we hope to get back to offering these social events:
– Ice skating
– Spring neighbour event, with wine and appies
– Janes Walk
– Spring bike tune-up
– Art in the Park drawing event
– Nature Walks
– Annual General Meeting
– Fall neighbour event
- This year, we have been busy with some major, multi-year projects:
The Eau Claire Improvement Project includes Plaza Redevelopment, flood resiliency, replacement of the Jaipur Bridge, and the 3rd Avenue Walking and Wheeling project.
The entire Plaza is being redesigned to have broad appeal and support a lot of new and different uses. The playground and splash-park will return in different locations but overall, the Plaza will be much greener and more pleasant to use, and it will end in beach access to the lagoon.
Flood resiliency will continue from the end of the current Promenade to the Reconciliation Bridge and be finished in the same style.
The Jaipur bridge is being replaced and significantly widened to make access easier to the Park, even during the busiest festivals.
The bike lanes and traffic calming devices on 3rd Avenue are being installed temporarily while pedestrian and cycle traffic is being routed away from the Promenade. When the construction is over the improved access curbs will remain.
- Green Line LRT
This project will be a long, loud, 24-hour construction project which we have to grit our teeth and get through. ECCA has already informed the team of how important pedestrian access and small business support are to our standard of living.
ECCA is concerned about the bridge abutments landing on the wetland area of Prince’s Island Park and has formally expressed our desire not to impact the Park. It looks like that battle is lost, but we are still going to ask for lighting, safety, and natural growth support in that area.
ECCA is extremely concerned with how the bridge is going to intersect with the south side of the river. The gradient of the bridge slope to the underground station means that the east-west pathway will be heavily impacted. Early concept drawings show that the wheeled path will curve around to the south allowing a less drastic gradient for bikes, scooters, and wheelchairs, but the pedestrian access will continue to be straight along the river and involve a lot of stairs. We feel that anyone with any mobility constraints will choose to walk on the wheeled path inevitably leading to conflicts and potential accidents.
We’d like to see a walking path that also takes the longer south route that has a lower gradient and we’re expressing our concerns at every opportunity.
- Greater Downtown Plan
Is a city project involving all of the community associations and business improvement areas from Downtown West to Chinatown and from Eau Claire to the Beltline.
The project is meant to improve the vitality and occupancy of the entire downtown area. It’s just begun but we expect to be involved for several years.
- Community Boundaries
A new Downtown Core Community Association is in the process of being developed. The boundaries they have chosen overlap with the boundaries that already exist for Downtown West and Eau Claire.
Our concern is that the overlap area is 31.5% of our neighbourhood and could materially impact our ability to be heard as a distinct, residential community.
ECCA is working to clarify this situation.
- Residential + Commercial Development
ECCA reviews all development permits from the largest towers to the smallest patio extensions and submits a written response to every one of them.
Graywood’s First and Park project at 6th Street and 2nd Avenue SW: This is currently an empty lot that extends from 2nd Avenue to 1st Avenue and the building will be oriented mostly toward the river but won’t neglect the south-facing neighbourhood interface. ECCA is generally in favour of increased residential development but did express concern about the set-back from LaCaille Park Place which seems a little too close for comfort.
LaCaille’s Kings on 4th Project at 4th Avenue and 5th Street SW: La Caille group, who is responsible for other residential buildings in the community, has applied for a development permit to build a mixed-use tower with offices, a hotel, and residences all in one building. It’s on the NE corner of 4th Avenue and 5th Street where there is a convenience store and other small retail and dining outlets. They also hope to have a major restaurant and patio at ground level, all helping to add vitality to the area.
The Concord: They have had quite a successful year with sales in their West Tower and just closed on the most expensive Penthouse in the building. They still plan to launch the second phase next year, but no date has been set yet.
YMCA: The YMCA building is being marketed with a bid date of November 8 – three weeks after the municipal election. While the current council has flatly said that they aren’t interested, a maximum of five of them will be returning, so it’s at least a theoretical possibility that the new council would consider buying the building and doing the repairs required to keep this as a fitness facility in our neighbourhood. I’d love to see the addition of a nice coffee-shop facing the Plaza, a physio/massage company, and ideally, a community meeting place. The agent has told me that there’s a great deal of interest from developers to tear down and rebuild a residential tower.
Eau Claire Market: A major project with great potential for becoming an important retail/entertainment/service hub with significant additional residential space – truly transformative for the community and one we’ve been following closely. This project effectively remains on-hold as it will be developed in co-ordination with the Green Line and that timeline is not fully established. We are supportive of the plan to integrate the Green Line station with the market.
501/601: These are the two large parking lots between Eau Claire and 2nd Avenues and between 4th and 6th streets. An ambitious DP was approved several years ago for a major residential development of eight towers in all, including a hotel and retail amenities. However, the project appears to remain on hold.
