The City of Calgary is reviewing their terms of reference for the urban design review panel. They are looking to elevate the standard of design in Calgary by strongly encouraging the use of the Urban Design Review Panel (UDRP) by applicants.
preliminary questions:
Who is the urban design review panel: The urban design review panel is a committee of professionals from architecture, planning, engineerings and etc. who comment on planning applications based specifically on urban design principles. They are not a decision making authority like the CPC but are an advisory committee. This group act as a peer review panel.
What kind of applications do they look at? currently the Urban Design review panel reviews projects like Development permits that have are deemed by the Head of Urban Design as "significant" and requring another an external review. The proposed scope would have the UDRP look at pre-applications, DC land use amendments, development permits, public proects across a geographic scope. Further additional projects would look at Outline Plans and Area Structure Plans.
What input does the Federation need?
1. Do you think it would be valuable for the UDRP to review Outline Plans and ASPs? Why?
The Federation currently believes that if the City wants to move towards principles that promote a healthy and walkable environments, we need to change the structure of how we design our communities and this starts with the Outline Plans. Creating a masterplan that focuses on the movement of pedestrians versus vehicles will create this sort of change versus what is currently happening which is piecemeal applications that have circulation issues that push onto the greater community. If we fix circulation, congeston, and create walkable environments from the initial stage, we can begin to stop some of the challenges that we are finding in our newer communities. We also believe that many of the issues are policy issues and an external body would be an appropriate source to suggest policy changes that would benefit our communities.
I want to know your thoughts! please send Carrie an email at engageinplanning@calgarycommunities.com