Highland Park president says lack of communication complicating secondary suites issue

A local community association president says a lack of consultation by at least one member of council is adding to the disconnect between Calgary residents in support of the suites and those on city council who have voted against wider approval.

Highland Park Community Association president Elise Bieche said despite a "large" majority of those in her Ward 4 community who support the suites, Ward 4 Coun. Sean Chu hasn't contacted anyone with the association to gauge their opinion.

"I don't think he's ever surveyed Highland Park. That would be my guess," she said. "Sean has never asked me my opinion on secondary suites or my board's opinion, because my board has actually endorsed our stance on secondary suites. So it's not as though I've gone rogue or there's a disconnect between me and how my community feels on secondary suites."

Calgarians and tourists will be able to cycle to Stephen Avenue Mall for lunch after a recommendation imposing time restrictions was struck down.

In council today, Coun. Sean Chu made a recommendation that "Council direct the traffic engineer to exercise his authority to not allow bicycle riding on the Stephen Avenue Mall between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. weekdays.

Coun. Druh Farrell argued there are already restrictions in place during Stampede week adding, "We're talking about a pilot here, let's try it out."

As city council continues to work through day five of the budget, today brought up some questions about Calgary's Parks funding.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot wanted to cut one Community Services and Protective Services lifecycle program by more than $2 million, the results of which citizens would notice, said Anne Charlton, director of Parks.

Charlton said the fund is used for "hard materials", such as paving, tennis courts, a mix of 8,000 benches and picnic tables, 463 back-stops at ball diamonds and 8,000 soccer goal posts among other things.

New rules will see spending capped, more people on art jury

The City of Calgary is making changes to its public art policy following a controversial $471,000-project Mayor Naheed Neshi has called "awful."

Under the old policy, the city's "per cent for public art" was calculated at one per cent of the total capital project costs for City capital budget projects over $1 million. The new policy will see the same spending level for projects under $50 million, dropping to 0.5 per cent on projects in excess of $50 million.