Community group to fight N.W. redevelopment plan

Residents of a northwest Calgary community are being asked to chip in to fight plans to redevelop their local shopping plaza.

An ambitious plan to replace the 1960s-era Stadium Shopping Centre with highrise condos and a 200-room hotel is out of scale with the neighbourhood, said University Heights Community Association president Peter Khu.

"The scale of the development that's proposed is enormous. It's about 800,000 square feet. And to put that in context, that's like 83 per cent of Market Mall on 20 per cent of the land size," he said.

"This is a small site and we don't think that technically that this site can handle that much development."

Khu is asking concerned residents to pitch in as the association tries to raise $75,000 to retain a lawyer to fight the plan.

"What we're looking for is something moderate, something scaled to the community and something that's compatible with the surrounding neighbourhoods," Khu said.

But Ald. Druh Farrell, who sits on the Calgary Planning Commission, said this is a long-term process and the new developments will be phased in.

"We're not talking about 14 storeys over the entire site. There is a transition. And it's a fairly large site," she said.

An Area Redevelopment Plan for the shopping plaza is expected to be approved by the commission on Thursday.