A new guidebook will set common standards for new community development and provide building blocks for community design.

The new document has been proposed to be a part of the Municipal Development Plan, which will allow the area structure plan to refer to the New Community Planning Guidebook.

Assessment notices have been mailed to about half a million property and business owners, signalling the start of the customer review period.

The 2014 property assessment roll has a total value of $276 billion, and the business assessment roll sees a total value of $3.15 billion.

Typical single residential properties are being assessed at $430,000 compared to $410,000 in 2013 and the typical residential condominium is assessed at $260,000, compared to $250,000 in 2013.

No, not that kind of bacon. A film series featuring renowned architect Ed Bacon is aiming to help Calgarians better understand how a city is planned.

Every Wednesday night in January and February offers a different film about city building topics. After each film the audience is invited to engage in discussion about what they just saw, and how it can impact Calgary, and people as individuals.

Calgary's community of Aspen Woods and west Airdrie will see new schools being built.

The Aspen Woods school will benefit about 750 Kindergarten to Grade 6 Roman Catholic Separate School District students, and the Airdrie school will serve 600 Rocky View School Division Kindergarten to Grade 4 students.

Over the next four weeks, some Calgarians will see snow disappearing from the roads. Trucks have been contracted by the city to remove the snow from residential streets.

The record 52.4 centimetres snowfall that hit Calgary in December, has the city utilizing snow removal services for the first time.

Southeast Calgary is currently the focus of snow removal, but all areas of the city will receive some amount of snow removal. However, how many roads that will have snow removed is unknown.

For the city's real estate market, 2013 is going to be a tough act to follow.

In a year that saw nearly tape-totape sales growth over its predecessor, 2013 ended on yet another high note as December sales increased eight per cent year-over-year sales over the previous year. Year-over-year sales growth rose every month in 2013 save February and March, with MLS® sales for the year up by 11 per cent over 2012.

Winter months bring frozen bodies of water, and many enjoyable activities can be done on the frozen water. However, frozen water can be deceiving and can turn into a very dangerous situation quickly.

"There have been several recent incidents of people venturing out onto frozen lakes or ponds, and it is very concerning to us," said Carol Henke, public information officer, Calgary Fire Department. "Because we have extreme temperature fluctuations in Calgary, ice conditions can be quite dangerous."

We don't often have to think about personal safety. It's one of the many luxuries that we enjoy thanks to our high standard of living and the ongoing focus on safety by innovative programs like the lobbybox system at CREB®.

The overarching goal of the lobbybox program is REALTOR® safety. The priority is to have centralized lockbox deployments in more apartment-style condo buildings every year. CREB® is making steady progress on this priority.