Record number of permits handed out for Neighbour Day celebrations
Posted Jun 17, 2017 6:51 pm.
Last Updated Jun 17, 2017 6:53 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Calgarians lined up for barbecues and bouncy castles Saturday, for the 4th Annual Neighbour Day, which commemorates community spirit in the wake of the 2013 flood.
There were a record number of applications for permits to hold block parties and rent green space from the City of Calgary, which says this is the biggest year yet.
“We are having a record amount of permit applications this year,” said spokesperson Eric Michalko. “To date, and these are final numbers,we have 181 green space and block party permits. And to put that in context that’s up from 137 that we had last year.”
In the southwest, Paul Siller attended the Mission-Cliff Bungalow celebration Mission Possible. He was just a block away from the evacuation zone. Siller lost power but eventually got a generator and his picnic table became a gathering place for his remaining neighbours.
“It started as ‘we’ve got to hunker down, we’ve got to survive the brunt of the storm,’ he said. “And then later it was ‘okay, we’ve got to hunker down and stay together because we don’t know when normal is going to start again.'”
Ward 8 councillor Evan Woolley says it’s amazing the community is able to do this, when half of it was under water.
“I was evacuated from my house, two blocks away from here, and it was amazing the next day to see emergency food hubs getting set up, people from across the neighbourhood were getting friends and family to come down and the day after we were literally digging out basements,” he said.
Woolley says the city has invested millions in flood protection but the proposed Spring Bank Dam needs to be built because “local mitigation will only take us so far.”
