About

The project is ultimately a response of concerned residents to the City of Calgary’s overarching objective to increase densification in inner city neighbourhoods (including CKE) and the City’s choice not to give significant weight to the concerns expressed by the residents of CKE in the 2022 CKE Community Engagement Study when formulating the Heritage Local Area Plan. The consultation process used by the City enabled citizens to learn more about the proposed Heritage Local Area Plan, and the representatives of the City Planning Group were very willing to discuss the Heritage Local Area Plan with residents. The discussions with citizens, though, appeared to be designed primarily to share information about the Heritage Local Area Plan, rather than to use citizen input to make significant modifications to the Plan. The Restrictive Covenant project was initiated after it was apparent that significant changes were not going to be made to the Heritage Local Area Plan with respect to CKE and that the concerns of a critical mass of CKE property owners were not well aligned with the City’s vision for the Heritage Local Area Plan. Seeing the very limited response of the City to the major concerns raised by many of the communities subject to the recent Westbrook Local Area Plan, further reinforced the choice to proceed with the CKE Restrictive Covenant Initiative. The motivation of those involved in the project and the large number of property owners who are supportive of the initiative is very simple-to preserve the pre-dominant single-family residential character of CKE. This was the reason that most of us moved to CKE and have chosen to continue to live here. We also know from some of the comments shared at the townhalls held late in 2022 that some residents moved their families from densified neighbourhoods like Marda Loop and Altadore because of a strong preference to raise their children in a neighbourhood with larger lots, lots of green space and a lower level of traffic.

In summary, it is a project to try to have a Restrictive Covenant registered on as many titles in CKE as possible in order to attempt to limit the potential densification of CKE under the Heritage Local Area Plan through the subdivision of existing lots. More information about the Restrictive Covenant is found on the Restrictive Covenant page. For context, it is important to remember that approximately 225 homes in mostly the west part of Chinook Park have had a Restrictive Covenant on their lots for over 60 years that limit the ability to densify those lots. This does not appear to have impacted the desirability of owning a home in that portion of Chinook Park or in making modifications to those homes.

We have a dedicated group of volunteers who have collectively spent many hundreds of hours advancing this initiative with our neighbours. The volunteers in the initiative are very forthcoming about sharing our names because we believe strongly in the project, and we are appreciative of the support we have been receiving from many of our neighbours. The Chair is Guy Buchanan from Kelvin Grove, who has an extensive background in residential development. The Area Coordinators and their contact information are as follows: Chinook Park and Kelvin Grove: Guy Buchanan (403) 589-6701 Guy@Co-Star.ca Eagle Ridge: Doug McNeill (403) 860-2714 doug.mcneill@sfr4.com There are additional volunteers from the CKE neighbourhoods who work with Guy and Doug on the project in various roles, as follows: Chris Baillie, Chris LeGallais, Jim MacLean, Alison McDonald, Shona Gillis, Sherri Gillis, Ray Kettenbach, Erin Anderson, Elysse Dalla-Longa, Dustin Maleganeas, Rodney Smith, Tom Anderson, Emma Deazeley, Travis McLellan, Landon White, Lana Thomson.

The Restrictive Covenant has now been registered on the land title of all the Kelvin Grove and Chinook Park - Round One participants. Eagle Ridge is still in progress. Some folks who hesitated participating in Round One are now seeing the benefits of an RC given the City’s apparent intention to approve the blanket densification of Calgary’s residential neigbourhoods. We believe that this interest from additional participants will increase once there is a greater understanding of the potential impact of blanket densification zoning on mature neighbourhoods like CKE. For those that are concerned about the long-term ramifications of registering an RC, it is important to note that the CKE RCs allow for revisions or discharge, by a vote of 75% of RC participants. This flexibility is not found in older style RCs. This means that participants benefit from the legal protection of the RC, but have the ability, with 75% approval, to adapt over the long term. We are now taking names of CKE homeowners that would like to preserve the character of CKE and participate in Round Two of the Initiative. Once we have a critical mass of names in a community (e.g., a minimum of 8-10), we will contact those participants with the details regarding an amendment of the existing RC to include them and registration of the RC on their land title. If you would like to add your name to the list, please contact Guy Buchanan at (403) 589-6701. The estimated cost of participation is $550 for each land title.

Here is a PDF of raw population data of CKE over an extended time that was obtained from the City database showing historical Calgary populations by community. The data for the communities within CKE and other communities subject to the Heritage Local Area Plan are presented in graphs. (Note that there appear to be data integrity issues with some of the base Eagle Ridge data, particularly in 2003 and the 2007-09 period.) As noted below, the data for each community in CKE includes all dwellings located within the boundary of each of the communities, such as apartments, condos and seniors’ complexes, such that the data are not limited to single-detached homes. This distorts the data somewhat, particularly for Kelvin Grove. The pattern that jumps out is the relative stability of the population base for an extended period. Although many older residents have chosen to remain in their homes for extended periods, homes are turning over, and there are always families with children who are eager to move into CKE. Kelvin Grove: When looking at the data it is critical to remember that the data for Kelvin Grove includes residents in: (i) the Mayfair Apartment on the corner of Glenmore and Elbow; (ii) a seniors' apartment complex on 68th Ave, as well as seniors’ residences at Trinity Lodge and Chinook Care; (iii) townhouses to the west of Chinook Care; and (iv) apartments and condos on the south side of 68th Ave and along Elbow Drive between 68th and the north side of 70th Ave. The City of Calgary Community Profile for Kelvin Grove from the 2016 Census Data published in 2019 shows that there were 865 “occupied private dwellings” in Kelvin Grove that included 350 single-detached homes (40%), 440 apartments (51%), and 70 other units described as semi-detached houses/row houses. The large number of dwelling types in Kelvin Grove other than single-detached homes has the effect of significantly distorting the average household size per dwelling (2.3 persons/dwelling noted in the Community Profile vs the 2.75 noted in the other City database for the same area) because of the lower population density in dwellings other than single-detached homes and the large number of residents in the seniors’ apartments and residences. To illustrate, 36% of all private dwellings in Kelvin Grove were noted in the Community Profile as having only one resident, with only 33% of the private dwellings having at least three residents. The numbers that would be expected to be significantly higher if only the single-detached homes were taken into account. Similarly, the age demographics presented in the Community Profile for Kelvin Grove are distorted relative to the demographics in single-detached homes by the inclusion of the seniors’ apartments and residences within the dataset. Chinook Park: The data for Chinook Park includes residents in the apartments south of 75th Ave on Elbow Drive and the Mayfair Care Centre on Collicut St (near Heritage and 14th St). The City of Calgary Community Profile for Chinook Park from the 2016 Census Data published in 2019 shows that the 570 “occupied private dwellings” in Chinook Park included 485 single-detached homes (85%) and 85 apartments (15%). The average household size per dwelling was noted to be 2.7 (vs the 2.94 noted in the other City database), with 14% of the private dwellings noted in the Community Profile as having one resident and 45% of the private dwellings having at least three residents. Eagle Ridge: The City of Calgary Community Profile for Eagle Ridge from the 2016 Census Data published in 2019 shows that the 110 “occupied private dwellings” in Eagle Ridge included 100 single-detached homes (90%) and 10 apartments (10%). The average household size per dwelling was noted to be 2.8 (vs 4.69 noted in the other City database), with 14% of the private dwellings having one resident and 46% of the private dwellings having at least three residents Here is a hyperlink to some attendance data at Chinook Park School/Ecole Chinook Park over time. The number of attendees has been increasing in recent years. This is expected to increase further as more new families move into CKE. It is also important to remember that the school boundaries include not just CKE, but Kingsland, and that many students in the French program travel to the school from other communities.

Critics of the Restrictive Covenant Initiative have referred to the project and those of our residents involved/otherwise supporting it as reflecting a NIMBY (Not in my backyard) attitude, not reflecting the values of affordability, diversity, inclusiveness and a sensitivity to climate change and urban sprawl, and not recognizing sufficiently the major changes that are on the horizon for our City. As convenient as it may be to apply these types of labels to try to paint a picture about those who disagree with the City’s densification vision for Calgary's inner-city, this is much more an ideological disagreement with the City than NIMBYism and a belief that the Heritage Local Area Plan reflects much more fully the aspirations of the City for CKE than it does the vision of the majority of CKE property owners for their own community. There are many other residents in other communities who also regard the City’s Local Area Plan efforts as being imposed on them against their will by the City. The starting point in our particular case is to recognize that CKE is basically Britannia with a different price point. Notwithstanding the comments from the City and others about affordability, diversity, inclusivity and urban sprawl, the reality is that the price at which someone can acquire a typical home in Chinook Park and Kelvin Grove is relatively expensive, and that is even more so for Eagle Ridge. This is very unlikely to change under the Heritage Local Area Plan. The cost of acquiring a home, tearing it down, making required modifications to the lot to accommodate utilities, building high-end densified dwellings on the lot and providing a reasonable return to the developer are such that whatever new unit is built is unlikely to be regarded as “affordable housing” by the vast majority of Calgarians. Townhouses seem likely to be priced at well over $1MM and fourplexes at over $800,000/unit, for example. Ironically, the largely single-family character of CKE, the mature trees throughout CKE and the large amount of greenspace and parking would be presented by developers as one of the major selling points for the new dwellings before any widespread densification of CKE. Tearing down a perfectly functional well-maintained home and removing mature trees in order to replace the home with several smaller new residential units when there are many other families who would be very happy to move into that existing home also seems inconsistent with a desire to mitigate negative environmental impacts. Support for the CKE Restrictive Covenant initiative by individual residents and a large number of their neighbours ultimately reflects a shared belief that they wish to preserve substantially the character of the neighbourhood that existed at the time they made the major life (and financial) decision to move into their home in CKE.