A Fair Share for Ward 9
Ward Nine represents the oldest tax base in the city. From a small fort in 1875, an incorporated town in 1884 and finally a city in 1891, the steady flow of new arrivals was at one time celebrated as an indication of progress. Businesses popped up to meet new needs and wants. Single-family and mixed-use residential began to stretch out along the Bow River. The communities of Inglewood, Ramsay, Ogden and Bridgeland were born.
To meet the needs of a growing population, systems and processes were set in place. Water, sanitation, safety, and eventually public transportation became the shared responsibility of all. Calgary elected its first city council that year. Mr. George Murdoch was elected as Calgary’s first mayor with 202 votes. It’s worth noting that he was also a small business owner - with a harness and saddle shop in Inglewood, on Atlantic Avenue (now 9th Avenue South-East).
The city has never stopped growing since the days of incorporation. Growing up and mostly out over these past 140 years. We continue to stretch our infrastructure and services in every direction.
City Hall needs to ensure that we take care of our existing communities before we start building new ones from the ground up. It is financially reckless to continue to grow out before we strengthen the foundations of the communities that have been the bedrock of our city.
In Ward 9, previous generations built churches, schools, and community centers. They built retail districts. This was done with taxes collected by the city, and funding from other branches of government (taxpayer dollars collected by the provincial and federal governments). Ward 9 has paved the way for our city's continued growth as the oldest residential and commercial tax base of the city. To be clear, I do not begrudge this fact. I am proud to live in a growing city. I like that people are excited to be here and build their lives here.
But the plaster is starting to crack. The neighbourhoods we’ve leaned on for decades that allowed us to stretch further and further out are beginning to buckle under the pressures of age and density, while tax revenues are redirected to build more sprawl developments. Our recreation facilities are being closed, our law enforcement is being deployed to other areas, and they are demolishing historic parts of our communities like the Ogden block, for a (much-needed) transportation project that has proven to be unreliable.
Ward 9 needs re-investment to keep up with this pace of growth. We need continued investments in our roads and water. We need adequate fire and police services. Some of the alleyways of the commercial blocks in Inglewood are still gravel, going unpaved for 100 years.
The city council has us fighting to keep open a 60-year-old, donated pool - with no conversation about replacing it with something ready to meet the future needs of our community.
Perhaps the canary in Calgary’s coalmine is the Bear’s Paw South Water Main breakdown that occurred this year. Following repairs of the original, catastrophic break, the city identified 29 more pipe segments requiring immediate repair. Further investigation of our existing water systems is required. The city released a nearly 600-page report on the incident which you can access here.
The cost to the Calgary taxpayer for the immediate repairs was approximately $25 million. With that in mind, it’s not unthinkable that tens of millions of more dollars are required to repair and upgrade our water systems so this doesn’t happen again.
This caused major disruptions to the day-to-day lives of every Calgarian and had devastating impacts on the small businesses in the surrounding area. The neighbourhoods nearest to the breakdown lost access to their drinking water.
More and more people are moving to Calgary every year. To accommodate the influx of new Calgarians in the neighbourhoods of Ward 9, there will need to be thoughtful solutions around cutting red tape for environmental mediation of industrial areas in the riding that have remained vacant for decades. There are acres of land in Ward 9 that could be redeveloped if the proper funding was made available and for a fraction of the cost of the infrastructure needed to support further sprawl.
The residents of Ward 9 are not asking for more… they are asking for their fair share.
Ward 9 needs to be acknowledged - not just for the history that flows through our streets, but for the important role in Calgary’s future that we will play.
From 1901 to 1911 Calgary’s population grew by an astounding 1000%. From 4,091 people to a staggering 43,704. We now stand somewhere near 1.5 million. But the emphasis is on the burden, and the amazing capacity of our beloved city to meet the moment and the corresponding needs of its new residents. In the past ten years, we’ve seen a net increase in our population of nearly 350,000. It’s no longer unthinkable that Calgary will break 2 million in population in the next ten years.
We must be thoughtful in our planning and development. Shore up the middle before stretching out any further. It’s fiscally responsible to properly maintain your existing investments before adding to them. It is also the overdue return on investment that Ward 9 deserves.
My name is Harrison M. Clark, and as your city councillor, I will fight for a fair share of investment for Ward 9.