It’s the last session for Calgary City Council before the summer break, but they have a lot of work and controversial decisions to make before they can pack up.
It will be a long meeting at City Hall on Monday, with one of the hot issues being the controversial re-zoning of Paskapoo Slopes to pave the way for development of the wilderness area.
Council voted 12 to 3 in favour of the rezoning proposal last week, and passed it for the second and third readings during Monday’s meeting.
However, there are still a lot of questions about what the plans will look like.
“We’ve earlier passed first reading of the bill, so it’s approved in principal,” said Ward 6 councillor Richard Pootmans. “Today, a number of us have amendments to that as we look to improve the environmental protection, connectivity to the north, east and southside as well. These amendments will go through today.”
One such amendment includes the responsibility for the developer to preserve the environment in the area as it is being developed.
Other issues council is tackling on Monday include the annual report from the Calgary Fire Department and the struggle the service is facing as the city continues to grow.
The report says that the benchmark for emergency response time of four and a half minutes is not being met.
The easy answer would be to add more fire stations, but that becomes a problem when you need to consider how to fund those stations as the years go on.
