The City of Airdrie is looking for input from residents as it continues with the revitalization of the community’s downtown core. An open house from 6 to 8 p.m. at City hall Feb. 20 will give citizens the opportunity to provide feedback on how they’d like Airdrie’s future core to look – building on the information gathered by the City during a downtown visioning project held throughout the first half of 2017, according to City of Airdrie Planner Karl Mielke. “We gathered a lot of feedback that quite strongly indicated the public did want to see a new downtown plan,” he said. “They wanted the downtown to become a lot better than it is now – a lot more walkable and pedestrian-friendly, with more services, boutique shops, restaurants and things like that.” Preliminary information was collected regarding the public’s perception of the size of the city’s downtown core, the types of land uses that should exist there, the qualities associated with the area, and how residents would rate the existing Airdrie downtown, Mielke said. “In the visioning project, the average score given to downtown was, I believe, 4.9 out of 10,” he said. “That’s not very good. Right now, most people in Airdrie don’t spend a lot of time in the downtown – they’re going to Sierra Springs or CrossIron Mills or even Gateway areas to do their shopping and eating.” Airdrie’s downtown does provide good access, Mielke said, in terms of being a centrally-located destination within the city, and hosts a range of good amenities. However, an abundance of surface parking and expansive open areas means a large portion of downtown offers little to draw residents or visitors. “In a big part of downtown, there’s really nothing to do,” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to address, but we need to do it in a way that meets the expectations of Airdrie residents.” The Feb. 20 open house kicks off several months of public engagement, where citizens will provide the input that will inform a concept plan City staff will begin work on this spring. According to Mielke, the first step is to revisit the results of the downtown visioning to remind people what the project is all about. “The challenge over the next few months is going to be to create an actual development or a concept plan that illustrates what people said they wanted to see in that 2017 visioning,” he said. “We’re building off of that, but getting more into the actual built form.” At the open house, interested residents can sign up for a range of additional public engagement opportunities, including one-on-one meetings, future open house events and design charrettes. The charrettes, Mielke explained, are intensive, collaborative planning sessions that provide immediate feedback to designers. “It will be kind of a board-game format, where people will actually be playing with different land uses and different types of transportation connections to sort of map out what the downtown could look like,” he said. “It’s quite an involved process and can’t be opened to anyone on a drop-in basis, so we’re having this open house to let people find out more about the project and sign up for more interactive engagement if they want.” The public engagement is scheduled to take place between February and April, and Mielke said he expects City staff will have a concept plan completed by the end of May. Then, the team will begin working on policy and implementation before bringing the final plan to council by the end of 2019. More information about the plan can be found at www.airdrie.ca/downtown “We just encourage everyone to come out to the open house and to get involved,” Mielke said. “The more feedback and input we have from the community, the better the result of the project is going to be.”
