‘Crap’ shouldn’t be easier to build, mayor tells chamber

If developers want the city to cut red tape, they should cut the “crap” from their projects, Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Tuesday.

In his annual Chamber of Commerce speech, the mayor lauded the city planning department’s efforts to ease some of the bureaucratic hurdles that home builders and commercial developers routinely complain about — but the city shouldn’t settle for low-quality developments.

“You cannot come as the industry to say to us, ‘It takes too long for me to get my approvals’ if you’re bringing us crap,” Nenshi said.

He rhymed off some policy documents the city has to ensure design that’s attractive and works for transit or pedestrians.

“If you bring us stuff that you know violates those guidelines and then you complain it’s taking too long to get an approval, well there’s a reason for that.”

Pressed afterwards, Nenshi wouldn’t explain what “crap” projects he was specifically referring to. But he did mention a planned big-box project at the far end of 17th Avenue S.E. that the Calgary Planning Commission approved this month over protests by the mayor and city planners.

Nenshi’s comment evoked a famed 2005 remark by Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel, about the provincial capital’s architecture: “Our tolerance for crap must be zero.”

An official with Trinity Development Group, which is behind the East Hills project on Calgary’s eastern fringe, was not available for comment Tuesday. The same developer, Nenshi noted, was also behind a proposal for a much nicer retail complex at the base of Calgary’s Paskapoo Slopes — a plan council rejected earlier this year.

Bruce Irvine, a former manager in the planning department, said the city’s policies have improved, but the approval practices wind up making innovative developments projects difficult.

“The system was designed to process the most typical of applications,” said Irvine, now a planning consultant.