Community engagement is set to begin at the end of the month on a trio of Calgary Transit Park and Ride sites to begin exploring transforming the parking lots into housing.
Fish Creek-Lacombe, Dalhousie and Anderson Park and Ride lots were identified by the Calgary Municipal Land Corporation (CMLC) as locations for transit-oriented communities (TOC).
All of those locations are on Calgary Transit’s Red Line.
The selection of those sites was the result of $20 million in funding provided by Calgary City Council in 2024 for transit-oriented housing, with site selection occurring this year for master planning and planning services via CMLC.
“We’ve been working on Calgary’s biggest TOC in East Village, and going to be applying that knowledge to Park and Rides along the red line LRT in the future here. We have 20 years of experience in leading thoughtful, master planned communities that remove barriers to development,” said Kate Thompson, CEO of CMLC.
“We’re here to make sure that developers can come and participate. So we’re not here to do all of the work. We’re here to partner with really capable partners in industry to make to make the housing happen.”
She said that CMLC is looking at the utilization rates for the selected locations, and that parking for transit users would remain part of the equation.
All of the sites were identified as being under-utilized, City of Calgary-owned land that were next to LRT and major transportation corridors.
In comparison, each of the sites would be on average about a third of the size of the East Village for development.
“All of these sites hover around kind of a 10 to 15 acres. Some are a little bit more. They’ll be phased in their construction and their delivery,” said Thompson.
“Nothing that happens will happen all at once. So, the parking will be a part of that equation in terms of how much remains and how much we phase over time.”
CMLC’s role in the development process would be to remove barriers for private developers, and to provide community planning, said Thompson.
“We’re here to partner with really capable partners in industry to make to make the housing happen. So, we’re our goal is to bring meaningful community, informed housing to communities even faster,” she said.
