Mission community: Archivist fights for city’s past

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Archivist fights for city’s past

By Tanya Foubert,
Calgary Journal

A Mission-area man is attempting to preserve Calgary’s history both professionally and personally.

Jim Bowman works as an archivist at the Glenbow Museum, and has volunteered his house to receive a new lower zoning that will cause it to depreciate in value when the Mission Area Redevelopment Plan is passed by city council. He is doing this because he wants to preserve the house as part of the city’s heritage and not torn down by developers.

“I think the ability to walk down the street and see (a building) that’s been there for a hundred years has a lot of meaning,” Bowman said. “For people who live in a place for an extended period of time, it’s kind of comforting to see things you saw 20 years ago. It feels like home.”

Bowman’s two-storey house directly faces the former Holy Cross hospital on Second Street and has stood there along with three other houses since 1911.

“Our city’s history is being demolished to make way for concrete highrises,” Bowman said.

He is disturbed by the trend of the city to tear down historical buildings. The Mission community has changed rapidly since 1993 when he moved to the area. At that time there were about 120 historical houses and now Bowman notes there are around 90, including those used as offices.

Bowman was part of the committee that worked on the Mission Area Redevelopment Plan, or ARP, beginning in 1998. He said he was hoping to reach an agreement with the city to have more of the Mission area down-zoned from a maximum of six storeys to three or four storeys.

As a result of the committee’s negotiations over zoning for the ARP, Ald. Madeleine King strongly supported individual property owners right’s to down-zone their property from RM-6, which allows a six-storey building, to RM-3, which allows a maximum of three storeys.

Bowman and two other homeowners chose to take this step, which will officially take effect when the ARP is passed by city council and made a bylaw.

“I guess what I did is kind of a sacrifice, but not a big sacrifice,” Bowman said. “Maybe it means my retirement nest egg is $400,000 instead of $500,000. But I think the quality of life is more important than accumulating money.”

Bob Lang, who was president of the Cliff Bungalow – Mission Community Association in 1998, is also hoping to see zoning brought down. “In the new zoning, it will be a maximum of five storeys and still have the same density, which is at least a step in the right direction,” Lang said. “That’s the compromise.”

Lang said some land owners have not been supportive of the zoning reduction because they see it limiting what they perceive as development potential.

The ARP also creates guidelines for development in the community. These guidelines are meant to help developers, the city when they examine development applications, and the community, members of which, can point out when the guidelines are not being followed.

“The development guidelines are guidelines. They’re not black and white, therefore they are open to interpretation and this is one of the issues that not just this community has, but a lot of communities have.”
Lang would like to see stricter guidelines as the ones in place in Area Redevelopment Plans are not always followed.

“Its open to interpretation and that’s where the communities are having trouble because its being interpreted from a perspective far away from what they think the proper interpretation should be,” Lang said.

The city postponed an open house for the community on February 8th until March 22nd on the proposed ARP before it goes to council to be put to a vote.

- The Calgary Journal is published by students in the journalism program at Mt. Royal College and serves southwest Calgary communities and businesses.