Calgarians speak out about city development plan

More than 250 people crowded into Calgary city council chambers Tuesday to express their opinions about Plan It, the proposed long-range plan for the city's growth.

There were so many people at the council chambers that a separate overflow room had to be set up.

Plan It is a long-term development policy to guide the city's growth over the next 60 years. Recommendations include a greater emphasis on public transportation and higher-density housing.

Heather Hendrie has lived in Calgary for 10 years and she said she wholeheartedly supports Plan It.

"I think it's going to make this a better city for me as a cyclist and as a pedestrian. Intensification of development is really key to me as well," said Hendrie."I wantto be able to live in a city that I am really proud of."

Hendrie has taken the week off work to watch the public submissions.

Plan will create multitudes of highrises

Peter Bulkowski also took time off work to come to city hall, buthe is opposed to the plan.

"When Plan It goes in, it provides the means to basically destroy the single family communities that we have today, to totally change their nature," said Bulkowski."We're talking about 24-storey highrises being put into Brentwood, 40 storey highrises going into Westbrook, 10-storey highrises, multitudes of them, going into Anderson."

The home building and development industry will also make submissions to council to express their concerns over the plan's call for higher-density housing.

Peter Rishaug withCivic Camp Calgary a group in favour of Plan It saidthe development industry has had an important voice throughout the process.And he expects the industry will continue to be profitable if Plan It is adopted by council.

"We always need retail, commercial and residential developments in this city.All it's going to do is, we're going to modify our development pattern to benefit our city as a whole, economically, socially and environmentally."

Some alderman are calling the Plan It discussion the most important debate the city has faced in decades.