9 October 2024
Residents at Silvera’s Bridgeland communities of Bow Valley, Aspen and Spruce watched crews install new landscaping around their homes over the summer. The facelift of these spaces beautifies the area while making it safer.
“Bridgeland community managers came to our team with concerns about transient people in the area approaching Silvera’s buildings, residents and employees,” says Jairo Rodriguez, Project Manager with the Capital Maintenance and Renewals team. “So, we needed to implement solutions to deter that from taking place.”
The landscape architect consultant used a landscape architecture concept called CPTED – Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design – that implements elements such as plantings, lighting, gates and fencing to prevent unwanted loitering and trespassing.
This summer, crews installed different levels of lighting to provide greater and more consistent illumination to the area. They also added new fencing around resident leisure areas to provide visual and physical deterrents for trespassers.
In addition, they added a new planting buffer along resident windows to prevent unwanted access and installed different garbage enclosures with non-climbable fencing.
Jairo and his team also created additional areas that can be used by residents in the Bow Valley community. These include a 100 m loop around the northwest corner of the building with additional seating, plantings and grassy spaces, essentially creating a private park for residents. They also added a new pathway to provide better connectivity between the city pathways and the adjacent park.
Privacy fencing has been installed to help minimize noise from Memorial Drive at Spruce, and a new four-foot fence in front of Bow Valley helps direct people to, and away from, the front of the building. New sidewalks were also made wider to accommodate people using walkers to stroll side by side.
“We want to provide residents, employees and neighbours with an environment that is both safe and usable,” explains Jairo. “The area has really been enhanced with the new plantings, expanded seating and lighting, and directed building access.”
When planning the development, Jairo wanted to ensure the new lighting installations were energy efficient. Several LED lamp posts and pathway bollards provide directional lighting, which will save electricity while also minimizing light pollution.
Jairo is thankful to the City of Calgary for their funding that supported this project. “The ultimate goal was to enhance security, but Silvera took this opportunity to implement landscape elements that would achieve the same results while making it look appealing to the neighbourhood,” he says.
“A secondary goal has been to make the space more livable and appealing – a place residents feel proud to call home.”
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