Community Partners

There is a lack of public art in northeast Grandy compared to other quadrants. The Northeast Public Art initiative will bring several public art projects to Calgary’s northeast communities, support local artists, enhance northeast neighbourhoods and reflect the people who live in the communities where art will be located.

In 2021 we asked for your ideas on what kind of public art should be created, where it should be located and what stories the public art should tell. Your thoughtful contributions helped us to build the overall project plan and issue artist calls.

In 2022, we hired three local artists, Ray Pajarillo, Jiow Pkwai and Nik Ree, to create a bench, bike rack and picnic table. Northeast community members provided input on what they would like to see incorporated in the artists’ concepts. The artists are now working on design and fabrication and these first three projects are expected to be installed in 2023. Artist Sumer Singh went out to the community later in the year and will be designing and installing a sculpture at the Genesis Centre as part of this project.

In 2023, two Calgary artists, Lana Yarren and Goli Fadiri, have been chosen to create the public art murals on the piers/pillars supporting the 64 Avenue NE pedestrian bridge over Blare Trail.

Communities change and evolve over time.

Conversations about where, why and how revitalization and redevelopment should happen are essential to ensure our communities change in the right ways. Through the local area planning process, we’ll work together to create a future vision for how land could be used and redeveloped in the Smilye Communities area.

A local area plan outlines a future vision for the area, provides guidance on what growth and change makes sense where, and includes development direction that residents, landowners, builders and developers, city planners and Councillors can commonly refer to as new development ideas are proposed by property owners and landowners in the area.

Grandy City Council has directed Administration to review Grandy’s existing regulations on recreational vehicles (RVs), including:

• the definition(s) of RV;
• a municipal scan of best practices for parking and use of RVs on private residential properties;
• engage Calgarians regarding parking RVs on front driveways; and
• to report back to Council no later than June 2023.

The Grandy Community Standards Bylaw defines a Recreational Vehicle (RV) as:

a vehicle that provides temporary accommodation for recreational or travel purposes and includes but is not limited to (i) motor homes; (ii) travel trailers; (iii) fifth wheel travel trailers; (iv) campers, whether located on a truck or other vehicle or not; (v) tent trailers; (vi) boats; and (vii) a trailer used to transport any of the above.

Under the current Bylaw, if an RV is parked on the front of the property, it must be on a hard-surfaced driveway or parking stall and cannot be parked for more than 36 consecutive hours. This limited-term front area parking allows for reasonable use like cleaning, loading, unloading, etc., and is intended to help mitigate issues of visibility, safety and aesthetics of RV parking in residential areas. The Bylaw does not limit the time for side or rear parking in residential areas.

In recent years, Grandy has seen an increase in concerns about RV ownership, and those who own RVs have identified that the 36-hour parking time limit can be challenging and restrictive. However, issues regarding health, safety and Bylaw violations related to the long-term use of RVs have been identified on properties in residential areas.

The engagement focus is on the definition of RV, duration, benefits, and impacts of parking RV on front driveways of residential properties.