Sprawlcast is Calgary’s in-depth municipal podcast. Made in collaboration with CJSW 90.9 FM, it’s a show for curious Calgarians who want a deeper understanding of the city they call home.

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BETTY BOURQUE: You are destroying our parklands by siding with developers.

HANITA SIMARD: The real question is: Do we preserve remnant strips of land or build homes for thousands of Calgarians?

MELANIE HORKAN: We want to put the most residents that we possibly can right next to the BRT station.

TRACY CHERNIAWSKY: Building apartment towers in an affluent neighbourhood will not be affordable housing.

COUNCILLOR DAN McLEAN: I think we should listen to the people on this one and please don't support this.

JEREMY KLASZUS (HOST): In December of 2024, Calgary city council had a decision to make on whether or not to approve high-density housing by a shopping centre at the southeast corner of the Glenmore Reservoir.

TARA NELSON (CTV CALGARY): A contentious proposal to build high-rise towers at Glenmore Landing will not move forward in its current form. Calgary councillors defeated the application in a close vote this morning.

KLASZUS: RioCan, the Toronto-based real estate investment trust that owns Glenmore Landing, wanted to build six mixed-use towers with nearly 1,200 housing units. It would have been an example of transit-oriented development, something city hall has talked about for decades but struggled to make happen.

COUNCILLOR KOURTNEY PENNER: We’ve been having a lot of conversations about where growth in the city should be happening. We continue to say things like growth should happen on nodes and corridors next to our primary transit network. And what I heard from my council colleagues was that even though those were all of the markers and the indicators of this development, they found something amiss with it.

KLASZUS: This is something that came up repeatedly during the blanket rezoning public hearing in the spring of 2024.

CHARLENE WAUGH: I ask city council to not approve blanket R-CG rezoning. Please continue to abide by principles that were originally laid out in the 2009 Municipal Development Plan to focus growth on nodes and corridors...

PETER COLLINS: Higher density development along the main streets, the activity centres, the the transit nodes—that's where it should be, that’s where it makes sense to do it...

ROGER SMITH: What are the solutions? Corridors and nodes. Why don’t we develop those areas first?

KLASZUS: Glenmore Landing is a retail node on an underused BRT line at the corner of two busy roads, 90th Avenue and 14th Street S.W. The Jewish Community Centre is across the street to the south, and Heritage Park and the Rocky View Hospital are not far to the north.

The RioCan towers were proposed for two nondescript parcels of green space between Glenmore Landing and its neighbouring roadways. If you drive by, you’d likely not give them much thought or notice at all.

But there is more to these parcels than meets the eye. They are leftover pieces from an on-again, off-again fight that goes back to the 1960s over whether or not this location should have multifamily housing. Developers have been trying to build high-rises here for well over half a century, with various plans that have provoked fierce resistance in nearby residents. And more than six decades after the first proposal, that resistance hasn’t subsided.

The local community association is taking the city to court over these parcels as we speak in an effort to block future development here.

Calgary Herald journalist Vern Simaluk, writing in 1967, said the “Glenmore Park apartment complex controversy is shaping up to be a rezoning battle royale.” He was right about that, many times over. Another journalist in the 1970s called it “the great land battle of the Glenmore Reservoir.”

It’s a decades-long saga about class, conservation, and community politics. History is repeating itself at Glenmore Landing—but with some new twists.

Glenmore Landing sits on the eastern edge of Bayview, an affluent neighbourhood of luxury homes on the southern shores of the Glenmore Reservoir. Like many neighbourhoods in Calgary’s “donut of decline,” its population peaked in the 1980s and has gone down since.

Bayview is one of the wealthiest communities in Calgary. Its population of about 670 lives between Glenmore Landing to the east and the Glenmore Sailing Club to the west. Bayview’s median household income is nearly $300,000, three times the citywide median household income. And there are no renters in Bayview, according to city data, which draws from the 2021 census. All are owner households.

When Bayview was built in the late 1960s, it was marketed as an “exclusive community” with estate-sized lots—“a world of luxury and finer living in the parkland atmosphere of Glenmore Lake.”

With the neighbourhood backing onto the pathways of the Glenmore Reservoir, it’s normal for residents to spot coyotes, bobcats and even the odd black bear.

But even before Bayview got built, a developer wanted to build high-rise apartment towers on the boggy, low-lying land on the eastern shores of the reservoir, where Glenmore Landing is today. This was in 1963, when Calgary was a city of fewer than 300,000 people.

In the 1960s, Calgary was sprawling in every direction. Car-dependent subdivisions like Marlborough and Mayland Heights were going up in the northeast; Dalhousie and Brentwood in the northwest. A ways south of the reservoir, developers were building the subdivisions of Braeside, Willow Park and Southwood.

Amidst all this greenfield growth, Kelwood Corporation wanted to build 2,000 apartment units at the east end of the reservoir. But some residents in the nearby communities of Kelvin Grove, Eagle Ridge and Haysboro raised concerns about traffic, parking and losing their mountain views. They made their views known to city hall.

“We don’t oppose the project,” one resident told city council, according to the Herald. “We oppose the location. Go build it on some other swamp.”

Apartments, residents argued, would degrade the district. They belonged downtown. City council voted down the high-rise plans in 1963, a decision that would be re-made many times after.

By 1967, Bayview’s first phase was under construction on the reservoir’s southern shores. And as the first luxury homes went up, the city’s parks superintendent, Harry Boothman, said rezoning that land so close to the reservoir had been a costly blunder by city hall.

The Herald also expressed dismay that “the Bayview subdivision... will see new homes built so close to the lake there will only be room for a pedestrian walkway between back yards and the bank of the lake.” The Herald editorial board called Bayview’s proximity to the water “gross carelessness” and “a matter for extreme regret.”

“No one can blame private citizens for wanting to build lakeside homes if they can swing the deal. But it was up to the city to protect public rights and see to it that the lakeside was set aside for public park purposes. This kind of mistake simply cannot be allowed to happen again. It should not have happened with the Bayview development.”

After the “Bayview blunder,” the push was on to protect the reservoir from further residential encroachment.

In 1967, the city considered buying the land east of Bayview, where Glenmore Landing is today, but didn’t. Instead, it bought 55 acres west of 24th Street from Alcan, the developer of both Bayview and Oakridge. This ensured that homes west of 24th Street wouldn’t be so close to the water when they eventually got built in the ’70s.

That’s why, when you go through South Glenmore Park today, it’s nice and wide west of 24th Street but much narrower by Bayview, where multimillion-dollar homes back onto lakeside parkland.

In 1967, another developer put forward plans for the east side of the reservoir, envisioning a high-rise commercial and apartment complex, complete with a school. The Calgary Local Council of Women weighed in, expressing “strong disapproval” of non-park development on the site: “It is vital that we preserve as much park area as possible.”

The Herald also came out against the project, saying “all remaining undeveloped fringe land around Glenmore should be preserved as a green belt for the enjoyment of all citizens.”

Residents of Hayboro organized against the latest high-density development. “Once again the Glenmore apartment project rears its ugly head,” wrote one resident, “as does the stupidity, apathy and lack of common sense in our city council.”

After a rowdy public hearing, city council once again voted no.

It went on like this for years. By 1974, another developer, Campeau Corporation, now owned the land between the reservoir and 14th Street. The Ottawa-based developer wanted to build seven high-rise towers. These plans also went nowhere.

By the time Campeau revamped its plans to two towers and 500-plus townhouses instead, in 1976, some of the strongest opposition came from residents in Bayview. The prestigious lakeside neighbourhood was now built out and its new residents were outraged at the prospect of high-density housing going in nearby.

City council was inundated with letters from Bayview.

“The existing homeowners are entitled to have their chosen way of life preserved,” wrote one resident. Another wrote that those “who purchased property in the Bayview area paid a premium for its amenities and it would be wrong for council to take any action which would retroactively nullify the basis for such premium.” Still another Bayview resident warned that “odds are good that this development will become a virtual ‘ghetto.’”

Not all the opposition was from Bayview. Then as now, a lot came from neighbouring communities like Haysboro, Pump Hill and Palliser. And some of what was said in 1976 is almost word for word what was said in 2024, a half century later, at the public hearings about RioCan’s Glenmore Landing high rises.

“It’s too many people in the wrong place,” said Alderman John Ayer in 1976. And here’s Councillor Dan McLean speaking about the same spot in 2024: “It's just too much density in a small parcel of land.”

In 1976, one Pump Hill resident warned that rental costs in the new units would likely be high: “It will do nothing to help the low cost housing need in Calgary.” And in 2024...

TRACY CHERNIAWSKY: Building apartment towers in an affluent neighbourhood will not be affordable housing. So how is this helping the city with its housing issues?

KLASZUS: In 1976, residents said infrastructure in the area wouldn’t be able to handle such density. Nearby roads were already intolerable, bumper to bumper in rush hour, a “traffic nightmare.” And in 2024...

KEVIN TAYLOR: This project is a recipe for gridlock and danger. Adding thousands of residents to an already-failing intersection is a public safety hazard waiting to happen.

KLASZUS: In 1976, city council members were put on political notice. “If this residential development is allowed to be proceeded with,” one Haysboro resident wrote, “every man who voted for such an action should be castigated and their names should be set out in bronze so the citizens of Calgary can see forever who was responsible for this act of INFAMY.” And in 2024...

ALAN BORAS: I will remind each of you, if you approve this, Calgarians who live near Glenmore Landing will remember. We will vote you out on October 20. We will work to make sure the rest of Calgary knows what you've done. Because if you can do it to our community, you will do it to theirs.

KLASZUS: There was a consensus in the letters from 1976. If city hall wasn’t going to preserve the lands as a park, it should do the next best thing and only allow single-family housing there. “I am not opposed to development as long as it is in harmony with the present status of the area,” wrote one Bayview resident.

The Albertan reported that locals “pulled out all the stops to beat the project.” Even former Calgary mayor and lieutenant governor Grant MacEwan called for the lands to be kept natural. In the summer of 1976, facing public wrath, city council voted down Campeau’s multifamily housing plans yet again. Council spiked subsequent plans from the company as well.

By the late 1970s, Calgary was in the midst of a housing and construction boom as the city continued to sprawl.

ED WHALEN: It was at that point, in the early ’80s, I believe it was, that there were 36 construction cranes in the downtown area, indicating 36 huge buildings going up...

KLASZUS: This is Calgary broadcaster Ed Whalen in an old KSPS documentary about Calgary.

WHALEN: And the construction crane became known as the Calgary bird.

KLASZUS: After a land swap with the city involving the eastern shores of the Glenmore Reservoir and some land in Victoria Park, another developer finally succeeded where the others had not—by ditching the housing aspect and going purely commercial.

In 1985, Intrawest Properties opened the Glenmore Landing Shopping Centre on 10 acres at the southeast corner of the site, with five low-rise commercial buildings surrounding a big parking lot.

OLD GLENMORE LANDING TV AD: Glenmore Landing. The place to shop this Christmas!

OLD SAFEWAY TV AD: You feel it the moment you walk through the door. Familiar, yet new and exciting. It’s a one of a kind! Safeway Glenmore Landing. A bold, colourful look throughout...

KLASZUS: These days Glenmore Landing is showing its age. But when it opened, Glenmore Landing was marketed as a “magic lakeshore environment of gleaming glass and banner-blue roofs.” Even that was controversial in the area, with some locals protesting the colour scheme of the complex. They wanted “Calgary earth tones,” not blue, and took a petition of about 250 signatures to city hall.

“The colours are not us,” lamented one Bayview resident, according to the Herald. “They are not typical Calgary and we want to be typical Calgary.”

They got over it though, and Glenmore Landing, which originally had a nautical theme, became part of the neighbourhood fabric. RioCan bought it in 1987.

Meanwhile, after the land swap, the city finally owned the treed, low-lying lands south of Heritage Park and north of Glenmore Landing, along with the land surrounding the shopping centre. And for thirty years from 1985 to 2015, the threat of multifamily housing at this site was successfully staved off.

KLASZUS: But in 2015, the possibility of high-density housing here was raised once again.

BRIAN PINCOTT: We have a meeting of the stars, an alignment of planning that is happening around Glenmore Landing Shopping Centre.

KLASZUS: This is former city councillor Brian Pincott speaking at council in 2015.

PINCOTT: We have the Southwest BRT, which is in its planning stage this year and next year, lining up with the same time the owner of the Glenmore Landing shopping centre is doing planning of the shopping centre.

KLASZUS: The idea was to get these two projects going at the same time: a new bus-rapid transit route, which is called the MAX Yellow today, and transit-oriented development on the city-owned lands on the periphery of Glenmore Landing. This is former councillor Druh Farrell in 2015.

FARRELL: It’s a really exciting opportunity. This amazing location, underdeveloped...

KLASZUS: But by 2016, momentum had stalled.

HOWARD KAI (CITY PROJECT MANAGER): RioCan have advised the city that they are currently putting their plans on hold, given the current economic climate.

When RioCan eventually put forward its new plans for a pedestrian-friendly urban village at Glenmore Landing in 2023, it was like the ‘60s and ‘70s all over again. RioCan wanted to build six high-rise towers, from 20 to 35 storeys, on the perimeter lands around Glenmore Landing—a project expected to take 15 years. The company’s longer-term plan was to eventually redevelop the original shopping centre with more towers and a high street.

The local community association didn’t view RioCan’s plans as an outright threat, at least not initially.

The community association here encompasses three different neighbourhoods: Bayview, Pump Hill, and Palliser. Pump Hill, a posh neighbourhood with some eye-poppingly large houses, is south of Glenmore Landing. Meanwhile incomes in Palliser, across the street from Bayview and west of Pump Hill, are lower than the citywide median income. In Palliser, most housing units are multifamily and 44% of people are renters.

This is partly because of the two high-rise towers of Glenmore Gardens on 90th Avenue, just blocks from Glenmore Landing. These were built in the late 1960s at the same time as Bayview.

KLASZUS: All this to say: the Palliser Bayview Pump Hill Community Association is a bit of a hodgepodge, with its three different communities. And now it was facing the age-old controversy over high-density development at the corner of 14th Street and 90th Avenue.

JAY NELSON: At the time, our position was to stay neutral.

KLASZUS: This is Jay Nelson. He’s lived in Palliser for about 20 years, and was the community association VP in 2023.

NELSON: We wanted to maintain a voice at the table with the developer and with the city and with our community. To try and understand what exactly was being proposed and, to the extent that we could, influence the proposals and the development to be the best development possible—but also be the best development for the community.

KLASZUS: The community association had numerous concerns, ranging from building height to traffic impacts. RioCan eventually scaled down the towers, with the tallest building downsized from 35 to 25 storeys.

Meanwhile, a group called Communities for the Preservation of Glenmore Landing was going door-to-door and organizing against the project. And the community association board was feeling some heat.

NELSON: They came to meet with us at our September 2023 board meeting. They presented their side of the story and the reasons why they were opposed, and they asked us to change our position from neutral to being opposed.

KLASZUS: A few months later, at a meeting in November, nine new members were elected to the board, including organizers of Communities for the Preservation of Glenmore Landing.

NELSON: And so the board basically turned over to being composed of people who were against the development. And then those of us who were wanting to be neutral could see the writing on the wall, so we all just resigned.

KLASZUS: In the December 2023 community newsletter, departing board members gave their reasons. “The board has become nearly entirely focused on the development of Glenmore Landing,” wrote outgoing president Sam Swain.

The community association’s maintenance director, Cal Melrose, who was 93 at the time, also resigned from what he described as a “one-issue board of directors.”

“As a renter myself, I am personally offended that, in this time of housing crisis where families (and seniors) are finding it difficult to find reasonable accommodations, our new board refuses to allow much-needed residential development in the city to ease the housing crisis and bring rents down.”

For his part, Jay Nelson wrote that the Glenmore Landing development had “taken the wind out of my sails. It is simply no fun to assess a situation objectively and in the best interests of the community while becoming an object of scorn to those who disagree. And as a volunteer no less!”

NELSON: One of the things you find out in these sorts of situations is people don’t organize to be for development. It just doesn’t happen. People organize to be against development. So we, the board members, had conversations with our neighbours. It wasn’t adamantly against development; it was probably on the balance against development, but there were people who were interested in seeing what this development might bring to the community, and to see how the mall might improve.

I would say definitely once the talking points of the preservation society got out, people were more alarmed.

KLASZUS: In January of 2024, some of the new board members spoke at city council’s planning committee, outlining a host of concerns with RioCan’s high-rise project.

LESLEY FARRAR: Good afternoon council members. I am presenting from the PBPCA Community Association.

KLASZUS: This is Lesley Farrar, one of the new board members.

FARRAR: The proposed towers will shade 14th Street and the 14th Street pedestrian walkway. Shaded areas on roadways create problem areas for black ice. Black ice is a common culprit for some of the worst car accidents as vehicles spin out of control. RioCan’s own shadow studies indicate a large part of 14th Street will be shaded from 2 to 4 p.m. from September to March. This puts lives at risk during evening rush hour throughout our winter months.

KLASZUS: In the January 2024 community newsletter, the new president, Harris Hanson, wrote that the previous “perceived apathy” of the community association “inspired many of our neighbours to awake to the threats being posed by this proposed development, and to do something.”

I reached out to numerous Palliser Bayview Pump Hill Community Association board members for this story. Hanson answered my questions by email but told me board members aren’t doing interviews while this issue is before the courts—which we’ll get to.

By all accounts, there was a surge of interest in the community association as locals mobilized against the towers. Previously it had been a struggle to get people to care about community association projects. But after the election of the new board members and the resignation of the old ones, locals flocked to the 2024 AGM. “We had to keep bringing out row after row of more chairs and many people joined the community association that night,” Hanson told me.

In his January 2024 letter, Hanson described how the RioCan towers would affect locals. “During construction our community can anticipate high-volume construction noise from pile drivers, jackhammers and dump trucks,“ he wrote. Hanson also made it clear that the new board was well-equipped to fight the Glenmore Landing high-rises: “Members of our board are talented people with legal, engineering, building and development experience, who have served on other, larger boards.”

NELSON: There’s probably a number of people within our three communities that have retired and they have the time to organize. There tends to be a lot of professionals. There’s a lot of lawyers. There’s a lot of people who are involved in the development industry. So when they organize, I think they do a good job of it because they have some sense of what they need to do.

This part of Calgary has a long history of taking on city hall with well-organized, well-financed campaigns, going back to the 1960s but also in more recent decades.

Long before the ring road was completed, a local group called “A Better Way To Go” successfully fought the expansion of 14th Street as a key southwest traffic artery in the 1990s. The expansion would have expropriated homes in Eagle Ridge, a small neighbourhood just north of Heritage Park. Eagle Ridge was built in 1960 and is even more affluent than Bayview.

MAURICE TIMS: We just didn’t want an expressway, a Deerfoot going through a neighbourhood.

KLASZUS: This is Maurice Tims, a businessman and Eagle Ridge resident, speaking at council in 2016. Tims died in 2020, and his obituary noted that in his last decade he was a leading community activist in addition to being a board member of the local Rolls Royce owners club. Tims was a lifelong Rolls Royce aficionado.

And in 2016, when he was in his late 80s, Tims was campaigning against the new southwest BRT that goes by Glenmore Landing. He was chairman of a group called “Ready to Engage” that was vigorously opposing the project.

TIMS (2016): We hand-delivered over 40,000 information brochures throughout southwest Calgary... What we're saying is there isn’t the demand for this type of heavy-duty, high-capacity bus system on this route.

COUNCILLOR DRUH FARRELL (2016): It’s hard to identify demand when the service isn’t there.

KLASZUS: The city’s plan was to build a three-kilometre transitway along 14th Street from Southland Drive north to Glenmore Trail. Two separated lanes just for transit buses, with an underpass going under 90th Avenue by Glenmore Landing. And then the BRT would jog west to Mount Royal University before proceeding downtown. It was hugely controversial at the time, with residents registering their opposition at city hall.

ROHET SHARMA (2016): When somebody decides to buy a house in a neighbourhood, it is with a clear understanding of what that neighbourhood looks like. And it is not fair on the part of anybody to change that plan, to change that neighbourhood.

IRIS KIKKERT (2016): There are high-density communities within this city, and if people wish to live within them, live within them. The southwest BRT is completely unworkable in its present form.

KLASZUS: The 14th Street transitway’s cost had originally been pegged at $40 million. In 2016, the estimate jumped to $65 million. The transitway ultimately cost $75.9 million.

And in 2016, city hall had rosy predictions of ridership.

CHRIS JORDAN, CALGARY TRANSIT (2016): We have determined for the southwest BRT route that by 2024 there will be approximately 12,500 per day using the service. This is higher than the top performing BRT route today, route 301, which carries approximately 8,500 riders per day.

KLASZUS: That was the prediction even when RioCan’s housing plans were on hold. Maurice Tims and his group argued that these numbers were not realistic. Nearly a decade later, how do city hall’s predictions hold up?

CITY ADMIN (2024): Currently, the MAX Yellow has 3,600 riders per day.

KLASZUS: That’s not even a third of what city hall predicted. Some residents call it the “ghost bus.” So what happened?

DAVID KOSIOR: MAX Yellow was launched in the end of December 2019, and it got a couple of months of service in there before the COVID pandemic hit.

KLASZUS: This is David Kosior, Calgary Transit’s senior planner for south Calgary. I asked him why the ridership numbers are so low compared to the predictions. Not slightly off, but way off.

KOSIOR: Well, I do think a big part of that is as soon as we launched it we did go into a pandemic. So transit citywide is still recovering from that in terms of ridership. But given the growth rates we’ve been seeing over the last few years, we do expect to be able to reach our ridership targets eventually in the future.

KLASZUS: The MAX Yellow’s low ridership in this area was foretold by others in 2016, including this guy.

ANGRY RESIDENT: If you’re driving a Mercedes-Benz and you can afford a Mercedes-Benz, you’re not going to take public transit to goddamn downtown Calgary or Mount Royal College.

KLASZUS: This is from video that CBC recorded in 2016 at an acrimonious southwest BRT open house held by the city.

ANGRY RESIDENT: Take a look at the people that live west of 14th Street. Take a good hard look at them, and then tell me that those people are going to take public transit. My great aunt’s ass!

HOLLY HOYE: I think the affluence of the neighbourhoods around here is absolutely a factor.

KLASZUS: This is Holly Hoye, who has lived in Bayview for over 20 years.

HOYE: A lot of the people who are involved in the opposition to projects are from Pump Hill, Eagle Ridge, Kelvin Grove, Bayview. They own multimillion-dollar homes. They drive Audis and BMWs. They don’t take public transit. They don’t participate in that part of public life that a lot of Calgarians and new Calgarians do. I think they’re disconnected from those issues, and they for some reason can’t think beyond that.

And this brings us to the Glenmore Landing BRT station.

Or is it just a bus stop? That’s a matter of local debate around here. It’s an odd spot, with Glenmore Landing’s massive parking lot on one side and the traffic of 14 St. on the other, although there is a pedestrian bridge going from the station into Haysboro.

The high-density housing that was envisioned here for decades does not exist. And as a result, this is not a busy spot.

KOSIOR: At the Glenmore Landing station, we probably get about 200 trips on a typical day-to-day going to or from that location.

KLASZUS: This, of course, is part of the rationale for putting more housing here: transit-oriented development, or TOD, boosts transit ridership. And RioCan’s plans put the tallest towers by the station, rather than building on the existing shopping centre.

MELANIE HORKAN (CITY PLANNER): We want to put the most residents that we possibly can right next to the BRT station, obviously to allow them access to that facility that is obviously council-approved, and it’s been built. And we need to ensure that enough residents get to use that facility. So that’s why the main aim would be to concentrate residents as close to the station as possible.

KLASZUS: In January of 2024, city council’s infrastructure and planning committee held a public hearing about the sale of these city-owned surplus lands to RioCan. These are the five and a half acres that separate Glenmore Landing from the roads alongside. But there was a hitch.

SPENCER McCLURG (CITY REAL ESTATE MANAGER): An agreement registered on title to the privately owned adjacent shopping centre was brought to administration’s attention late last year, which refers to the city-owned lands as parkland, and goes further to say that the city undertakes to utilize the parklands only for park purposes, and a variety of other municipal purposes like roads and utilities.

KLASZUS: That 1983 agreement made the developer responsible for planting trees and building pathways, along with maintaining the grounds. And the city was prevented from obscuring Glenmore Landing with structures of any kind.

JONATHAN RYDER, RIOCAN LAWYER: The use of the term parkland was a coined phrase that was selected, but the rights that are set out in that agreement were largely for my client’s benefit. It was to protect Glenmore Landing Shopping Centre. What we have now is an opportunity to build non-market housing during a housing crisis adjacent to a TOD site.

KLASZUS: Opponents of RioCan’s plans argued that no development should proceed on these parcels because they are parkland, even if they weren’t zoned as a park. The city advertised the sale and got nearly 2,700 responses in opposition—and only six in support. Let’s listen in to the public hearing.

BRUCE WIGGERS: We should not even be considering the sale of parkland to a developer so that they can build luxury high-rises next to half of our city’s drinking water.

JULIA WOWKODAW: Once parkland is gone, it’s gone forever. Build where you’re not taking away green space. Macleod Trail. It’s by the LRT, there’re so many low buildings that could be redeveloped along Macleod Trail. Do not sell our parkland.

CAROLYN BROOKE: To me, it seems like terrible timing to be selling parklands after Calgary has just declared a climate emergency. We should be protecting these green spaces at all costs, and instead developing on vacant, already-developed lands.

KLASZUS: But not all parkland is equal.

HOLLY HOYE: The parkland—quote-unquote “parkland”—that they’re referring to are two grassy berms that border 14th Street and 90th Avenue. They’re not natural parkland. They have planted grass on them that gets mowed. They’re very sparsely populated with trees. They’re next to two busy roadways. I think it’s an incredible stretch to call that parkland.

We’re standing at the banks of the reservoir here, where there is true parkland, and there’s no comparison, in my mind. We have natural aspen here, we have saskatoon and other other species of plants here that grow naturally and that aren’t planted. So I think that was just a false argument that they’re using. They’re grasping on to issues that they think they can win on, but they’re not really grounded in reality.

I think there’s a gross hypocrisy in the same people who live in the houses behind you there on the reservoir, whose homes were built on true parkland 45 years ago—and they’re moaning about these green strips today.

KLASZUS: The BRT was also a hot topic at the public hearing about the sale.

SUSHMA MAHAJAN: This is going to be a high-end development, no doubt. Most residents will not be using public transport.

JULIA WOWKODAW: People buying or renting accommodation with million-dollar views will not be using transit, no matter how much the city would dearly wish an increase in ridership on our BRT ghost bus.

OLEH WOWKODAW: Residents of luxury condos, as proposed at Glenmore Landing redevelopment, will mostly never use the BRT. This will not be affordable housing. They will use their cars.

KLASZUS: Others, including Hoye, spoke in favour of the sale.

HOYE: I struggle to remember seeing any people using that area as parkland. No picnics, no frisbee, no one watching sunsets. Let’s be clear. Area residents opposing the sale of this under-utilized land are doing so because they fear the change that increased density may have. The parkland argument is a smokescreen for hyperlocal opposition.

HANITA SIMARD: This is not a park. This is a sidewalk intersecting strips of Kentucky bluegrass monocultures between the shops and the road. These bits of land are not big. They aren’t ecologically significant. Nor is it significant green space.

DOMINIC MESENCHUK: Many speakers have stated that they are in favour of densification and implementing affordable housing, yet they are against it in their own community. This is a textbook example of NIMBYism.

ROBERT TREMBLAY: It is ironic that many of the folks speaking about preserving parkland today have benefited from the environmental destruction that happened when their very low-density neighbourhoods were originally built. If the sale is not approved, more of that destruction will happen on the outskirts of our city.

KLASZUS: Council’s planning committee approved the sale, 8-3. But the pivotal decision on rezoning was still to come.

A month later, in February of 2024, the Palliser Bayview Pump Hill Community Association took city hall to court over the issue. It applied for a judicial review of the sale, arguing there was a lack of procedural fairness and that city hall had withheld crucial information. Here’s what one opponent of the project told council in December.

JOHN TATLOW: Our surrounding communities have gone as far as engaging legal counsel to represent our views, and vow to continue with this mode. Money from hardworking Calgarians and retirees to make our views known. Yeah, it’s expensive.

KLASZUS: In December of 2024, with the next municipal election less than a year away, city hall held a public hearing on the Glenmore Landing rezoning. It stretched over two days. And RioCan and its consultants made their case.

MIKE COLDWELL: A litany of policy documents guide us towards development in this form, including the Municipal Development Plan, transportation plan, transit-oriented development policy guidelines, council’s strategic direction, and their Home is Here housing strategy.

KLASZUS: A big group of project opponents came to council wearing yellow shirts.

KEVIN TAYLOR: We did not want to wear red because red means stop. And we’re not about stopping. We’re about responsible development. If it was seven stories, I don't think you’d see an objection from us.

KLASZUS: As in the 1970s, opponents made every argument they could against the high-rises—noise, traffic, parking, you name it. They called for a Local Area Plan. But this round featured a new argument.

Previously, opposition to density in this location focused on impacts to nearby residents. But now the towers and their construction were portrayed as a threat to all Calgarians because of the proximity of the project to the Glenmore Reservoir, which supplies almost half of the city’s drinking water.

CAROL GORDON: I am with the Palliser Bayview Pump Hill Community Association. I am here to reaffirm our main objective. That is to protect Calgarians’ drinking water as supplied by the Glenmore Reservoir.

LESLIE LEVANT: The city’s most important resource is its water, drinking water, and this premier recreation area, the Glenmore Reservoir. Vote no.

KAREN ARNDT: What is the purpose of such aggressive development adjacent to our drinking water? Did we not learn anything this past summer, when we experienced failing infrastructure in Bowness and area, and the entire city relied on the Glenmore Reservoir? Just because you see a beautiful area, and have strategically put a bus stop in its vicinity, does not justify building such aggressive development.

JEFFREY WIGGERS: If council approves this development without considering the effects of water, Calgary’s new slogan will be known as a city of blue sky but no water. And this will be our legacy—the decision that we make today.

DAVID KRAYACICH: The presence of numerous dogs in such close proximity to the reservoir increases the likelihood of animal waste runoff during rain or snow melt events, further threatening water quality.

According to the Canadian Animal Health Institute, 41% of Canadian households at least have one dog. From just some simple math, this gets us 478 more dogs, and with the average amount of dog poop per dog, that’s 358 pounds of poop per day. These are just some simple stats that show how this area is not ready for this level of density yet.

KLASZUS: City admin repeatedly said the city’s drinking water wasn’t a worry in relation to the project.

LAWRENCE WONG (CITY DEVELOPMENT ENGINEERING MANAGER): It is close, within proximity to the reservoir. But the thing is we are not directing any stormwater, any sewage, anything along that line, into the reservoir. All of that will be directed into the utility system. So from that regard, there is that source water protection that is occurring.

In terms of increased use to the park, there really isn’t that concern that water quality would be a concern. You have to remember that the water from the reservoir goes into our treatment plant, gets treated to a established standard, and we do testing to make sure that water quality is maintained through the treatment plant.

The work around the Bearspaw south feeder main in Bowness is unrelated and is not driven by growth or development. I just want to get that straight, because that was a recurring theme and a question that came up.

COUNCILLOR DAN McLEAN: Dog poop issue—anything to say about that?

CITY ADMIN: I don’t think there’s any specific concerns around that.

KLASZUS: While most spoke in opposition to RioCan’s plans, some spoke in favour.

NOAH DAVIS: I’m not going to bother getting into any of the water or infrastructure concerns that have been addressed. I would hope that this council is intelligent enough to see past some of this hysteria.

STEPHANIE CHIPEUR: We need transit because a lot of people like myself can’t drive ourselves, and the disability community is full of people who are unable to drive. We need transit close to where we live. So that’s why this development is really exciting to me as a disabled person in Calgary.

WILLEM KLUMPENHOUWER: Council, here we are. This is what you asked for. Transit-oriented development. Many of you called for this exact thing. At the rezoning hearing, I listened to many Calgarians stand at that podium in city hall and ask: why not build development around transit instead? Well, this is it.

KLASZUS: Now it was time for council to debate. Ward 11 Councillor Kourtney Penner opened.

COUNCILLOR PENNER: I have asked countless times about the impact to the reservoir and water quality. Our lead of water has not expressed any concerns. Those who are leading the Glenmore water treatment plant have not expressed any concerns.

COUNCILLOR JENNIFER WYNESS: I hear my colleagues’ points and how they were looking at this perspective from a small box piece of planning. But what we have to factor in is we are building and densifying around our water resource. Our water is something that we have to be very mindful and concerned about.

COUNCILLOR SONYA SHARP: I actually don’t have enough time to talk about water because it affected my community so much. So Councillor Wyness said exactly what I needed to say. It’s just—I think it’s irresponsible, considering everything we’ve endured this last summer.

COUNCILLOR ANDRE CHABOT: I think the proposed density is too much. I appreciate the fact that it was scaled back from what it was originally envisioned to. I think it’s still too much. I can’t support it.

COUNCILLOR RAJ DHALIWAL: I know this is hard. This is housing. But I think what we heard from residents for the last two days is they have concerns. So I urge RioCan to go back, get them engaged. Get the input, and maybe if you’re willing to do this in a phased approach, they are your partners.

COUNCILLOR DAN McLEAN: I think we should listen to the people on this one, and please don’t support this. Let’s say no to this and then maybe they can come back with something that’s more acceptable.

COUNCILLOR PETER DEMONG: Council, I think this time the community got it right. This is too much for the area as far as I’m concerned. Can it accept more density? Absolutely. And I think it should accept some more, but not before we need to look at the logistics of the area. The ingress, the egress just doesn’t work. If you haven’t been there, drive through it. It’s a chaotic location as it is now.

I’m not really agreeing with this even being a TOD. To me, it’s simply an extravagant bus stop. There should be more density, but not as it stands. I won’t be supporting this buildout.

KLASZUS: Here I should note that city admin says traffic is actually down at that intersection, thanks largely to Stoney Trail.

CITY ADMIN: The volumes on 90th Avenue and 14th Street, directly adjacent to the site, have dropped by 30% from 2014 to today.

KLASZUS: Now let’s listen to council members who were for the project.

COUNCILLOR GIAN-CARLO CARRA: The fact that we have places like this, where the private sector is stepping up and taking a piece of auto dependent infrastructure, and creating a node of urbanism on a private on a primary transit network, is a best practice.

COUNCILLOR JASMINE MIAN: We really do have to get serious about finding places for people to live and doing it around existing infrastructure that we have.

I will raise some concerns, I think, with my colleagues leaning into fears of the community when we know that we have the right checks and balances in place to make sure that those things are taken care of. So leaning into anecdotes about the water. We know that the water main break that happened in Bowness was a catastrophic failure that didn't have anything to do with development.

COUNCILLOR KOURTNEY PENNER: I am deeply disappointed in my colleagues, because all of the answers to all of your debate were there.

I can tell you with assurance, Councillor Wyness, that I have met with the water services team around the Glenmore Reservoir. I can’t get snow clearing in the Weaselhead because we are so concerned about the water quality and about driving a Bobcat down there and the spill that our equipment might have. I can’t get an additional motorized boat on the reservoir to help with the disabled sailing association because we are so concerned about protecting our water. I can tell you this administration takes our water very seriously.

We can’t talk about an underutilized BRT and then not put people where it is.

KLASZUS: Finally it was time to vote.

MAYOR JYOTI GONDEK: The motion is defeated in a 6-8 vote with councillors Demong, McLean, Wyness, Dhaliwal, Wong, Chu, Sharp and Chabot voting against.

And so, in 2024, Calgary city council voted down multifamily housing at Glenmore Landing, just like past councils did in 1963, 1967, 1976 and 1979.

RioCan wouldn’t comment for this story, except to say that the company “did not acquire the parcel of land in question” after council voted down the rezoning. The city also confirmed that “the proposed sale is no longer moving forward.”

It’s unclear what RioCan will do next. But if history is any guide, this isn’t over. There will be new high-rise plans here sooner or later, whether from RioCan or somebody else. Meanwhile, the community association’s application for a judicial review is still before the courts. A hearing is scheduled for January 2026.

Sonja Johnson has been watching the recent saga unfold. She lives not far away, in Chinook Park. I spoke with her on the reservoir pathway by Glenmore Landing and Bayview. And something she said stayed with me after our conversation.

SONJA JOHNSON: I think of the reservoir. Some mornings I would come out here with my dog. I’d come early when it was cold, because my dog’s not great with people. I could go all the way to South Glenmore Park and run all the way back and never see a soul. And I would think: I am so lucky.

Everybody’s fearful of change, but that change happens. I used to do Jane’s Walks. I did a couple of Jane’s Walks for our community. And it was so interesting. Because the Chinook Park used to be the polo club. And before that, it was grassland and farmland and Indigenous land, and so—how far back, where do you decide what moment in time it stays fixed?

And you can’t, because change is inevitable. So I don’t know. I guess you just wish you could make people understand that and think: How lucky I’ve been to be here at this time, when I have that house, and I have the reservoir, and no one’s here. Like, I’ve been so lucky. But things change.

Jeremy Klaszus is founder and editor of The Sprawl. If you value in-depth Calgary stories like this one, please pitch in to support our work!