Canadian firm sets sights on New Urbanism

Canada Lands Company (CLC), a corporation that redevelops surplus military bases across Canada, has received the go-ahead to build or refurbish 3,200 housing units at the 200-acre Currie Barracks in Calgary, Alberta. At 16 units per acre, the project will be the densest development CLC has yet planned in the rapidly growing prairie province.
Currie Barracks, about five miles southwest of downtown Calgary, is the last of three major projects CLC will develop on 455 acres previously occupied by Canadian Forces Base Calgary. Since 1995, when CLC was established as a government-owned, independently operated real estate developer, the company has used new urbanist principles to varying degrees in projects spanning the nation, from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Chilliwack, British Columbia.
Much of CLC’s new urbanist work has taken place in the western provinces. A 175-acre portion of the Calgary base has been redeveloped as Garrison Woods — a collection of 1,600 housing units and 70,000 square feet of retail, plus two schools. A second, 80-acre portion of the base is currently being developed as Garrison Green; it is to contain 1,000 detached houses, townhouses, and apartments, along with “coach homes” over garages on alleys (or “lanes,” as Canadians call them).
By comparison, “Currie Barracks will be much more dense, urban, and transit-friendly, with more investment in the public realm,” says Mark McCullough, CLC general manager for real estate in Alberta. It will boast a variety of parks. Roughly 200 businesses already lease space at the Currie site, and by the time the project is completed in 2016, approximately 2,500 to 3,000 people will work in offices, stores, and other businesses there. Development is expected to begin by summer.

study began a decade ago
CLC personnel began visiting and studying new urbanist projects, mainly in the eastern and southeastern US, in the mid-1990s. With increasing experience, the company has become more adept at applying New Urbanism’s ideas. “We didn’t really understand the New Urbanism movement in 1996-97,” McCullough says, noting that there were fewer developments to examine a decade ago. At Currie, he says, “we want to create a more complete community,” in comparison to some of CLC’s earlier lower-density, largely residential developments.
Though real estate specialists warned CLC against mixing uses and mixing housing types and prices in Calgary — a sprawling city sometimes called “the Houston of Canada” — homebuyers have proven receptive, according to McCullough. One sign of acceptance is strong resale prices; a refurbished duplex unit in Garrison Woods that sold for $150,000 (Canadian) in 1998 “now sells for $425,000 to $450,000 (Canadian),” McCullough says. The Canadian dollar is worth about 87 cents in US currency.
To avoid unnecessary demolition and to make a large number of “affordable” houses available, CLC decided that 25 percent of the units in Garrison West would be former military dwellings that would be renovated and offered for sale. The old and new, affordable and higher-priced, “are really intermixed,” sometimes on the same block, McCullough says.
With help from Jenkins & Associates Architecture and Town Planning, CLC developed an architectural code based on characteristics of Calgary’s inner city. Five styles predominate: English Tudor, Colonial, Craftsman, Victorian, and Prairie. “We’ve affected the level of architecture in the city,” says Linda Hackman, project manager of planning and urban design. McCullough also credits the rise in Calgary’s architectural quality to Carma Developers, which “got the ball rolling” with its McKenzie Towne project.

transit and park access
At Currie Barracks, “every house is within four minutes’ walk of a bus stop and within two minutes of a park,” Hackman points out. Fourteen buildings and landscapes with “heritage” designations are to be preserved. Six airport hangars, some of which have been used as sound stages and other film-related production facilities, will probably be removed.
“This is more expensive than conventional development,” McCullough observes. ”We spend at least a third more,” partly because regulatory approvals are time-consuming and partly because greater attention goes into the design and construction of public areas. “We found that the quality does sell,” he adds. CLC was established with a mission of producing developments that would generate a reasonable financial return while also benefiting their communities.
The most high-intensity development envisioned by CLC is the anticipated conversion of the 310-acre Canadian Forces Base Rockcliffe, in Ottawa, Ontario, into a community that will have 4,500 to 6,000 housing units and 10,000 to 15,000 residents, plus employment, commercial and institutional activities, and extensive greenways, including parks, natural areas, and recreational paths. The project, on an escarpment a few minutes from downtown, with dramatic views of the Ottawa River, is expected to favor “walking, cycling, and transit over the automobile” and will feature “advanced sustainable development initiatives,” according to CLC.
A draft community design plan for Rockcliffe is to be prepared over the course of 2007. Rick Hughes manages the project. The prime consultant team is made up of Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects; Greenberg Consultants; Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg landscape architects; and Barry Padolsky Associates Architects.