The CRRA is responsible for landscaping in most of Cougar Ridge, which is currently bounded on the south by Old Banff Coach Road, on the east by 77 Street, on the west by the future Stoney Trail ring road, and on the north by Canada Olympic Park and the future Paskapoo Slopes Park.

The one exception is an area in the central part of Cougar Ridge, immediately east of 85th Street. For more information on why one area is an exception and to see a map, please click on Information about the encumbrance issue sent to Alderman Connelly in 2010.

Yes, the CRRA is now able to accept electronic payments. 

Please contact our management company directly if you have questions about how to pay your fees.  

We are currently able to accept many different forms of payment to make it as easy as possible for our members to keep their accounts in good standing. 

Yes. For the households in Cougar Ridge that are required to pay the annual CRRA fee, the fee is secured by an encumbrance registered on the homeowner’s property at the time the development was created.

In other words, each person with an encumbrance signed an agreement to pay the annual rent charge when they purchased the property. This includes the new Apex Development at Paskapoo Slopes as well as all those homes developed by United Communities.

The Fiscal Year for the CRRA matches the calendar year – January 1st to December 31st.

No. Through a combination of human error and deliberate oversight, the City of Calgary and the developers of the neighbourhood did not put encumbrances on about one quarter of homes in the middle part of Cougar Ridge – the middle part of the neighbourhood immediately east of 85th Street. This part of the neighbourhood does not have to pay the encumbrance.

This would be difficult to change because it would require one of two things: 1) Either we would have to convince the homeowners in that middle part to add encumbrance to their land titles. Or 2) we could bring everyone’s encumbrance down to zero in the entire neighbourhood, then convince 66.7% of all residents (two third plus one) to vote for The City of Calgary collecting a $100 encumbrance from all residents at tax time. With this option, residents would have to vote on this issue every five years and the money could only be used for landscaping (for example, it could not be used to fixing the fence, or any other community projects that may come up).

The CRRA is not required to provide enhanced landscaping within the non-encumbrance part of the neighbourhood.

The CRRA finds it unfortunate that one part of the community is being treated separately from the rest of the community. If you think this situation is unfair, you may communicate your thoughts on this matter to your Councillor or call The City’s general line, 3-1-1. For more information on this issue, click on Information about the encumbrance issue sent to Alderman Connelly in 2010.

Landscaping costs are high and with our current fee structure, the CRRA is not able to take over maintenance of all green spaces from the City. We currently focus on enhancements in the boulevards, main entrance features in Cougar Ridge, basic weeding and maintenance for each growing season, while also building up a reserve fund, which is mandated.
Reminder: You agreed to pay these fees when you purchased your home. There is an encumbrance on your land title, mandating that these fees be paid.

If you walk/drive through these neighboring communities, you will see beautiful flower beds in the spring/summer, as well as enhanced maintenance of the grass/trees/walkways/etc.

Neighbouring communities of West Springs, Wentworth, Springside, etc. all have residents’ associations in place, and they also collect comparative annual fees to improve their community and allow for landscaping enhancements. Some of these neighbouring RAs charge $200-$400 per year.

How do I know you’re not misusing the money?

The money collected by the CRRA needs to be properly managed, to provide the best value for the community.  That is why we use a professional management company.  They handle all our invoicing, accounts, payments, and collections. Our financial statements are also audited every year as it is our obligation as a not-for-profit-public company.

Transparency is important, so we encourage you to examine our audited financial statements to make sure the money is being properly spent.

The CRRA is managed by residents of Cougar Ridge who volunteer their time and who are elected each year at the AGM.

We don’t post our last names on the website for security and privacy reasons.

We invite anyone who is interested in having a say in the CRRA’s work to put his or her name forward as a volunteer at the next AGM.

In order to keep administration costs down, we have not set up a phone line. Again, we do not have the manpower or resources to take phone calls. If you have issues pertaining to your invoice, collections notice, late fees/etc, please contact our management company.

First Service Residential

Grant Becker
Community Manager
1100, 840-7th Ave SW | Calgary, AB T2P 3G2
Toll Free 855.266.3601
Email grant.becker@fsresidential.com
www.fsresidential.com

The Cougar Ridge Residents Association (CRRA) is completely separate from the West Springs Cougar Ridge Community Association (www.wscr.ca).  Both groups consist of volunteers from the community.

The community association membership is voluntary and we encourage all of our neighbours to become members.  Some of the responsibilities include:

• the planning of sports facilities
• the community newsletter
• various social events.

The residents association is focused on landscaping. Membership in the CRRA is mandatory if you have an encumbrance on your home.

Good question.

Private developers are responsible for establishing the residents associations for new neighbourhoods, and The City of Calgary is responsible for the determining the regulatory climate under which these associations are established.

If you have concerns about the balkanization of residents associations, please contact The City of Calgary at 3-1-1, or speak with your Councillor.

We cannot formally amalgamate the many different residents associations and the community association in this area, because that would require getting every single home owner to change the encumbrance on their land title. In the future, however, the residents associations and community association may informally merge our governance structures.

We have heard that for some residents the primary concern is to have what is traditionally considered a “perfect” weed-free lawn, while we have heard from other residents that they are willing to accept some weeds in order to have safe, sustainable landscaping.

In 2009, we did some pesticide management research to better understand this issue, but we do not have a CRRA policy on this issue.

For now, The City will continue to be responsible for most of the landscaping needs in Cougar Ridge. Therefore, the City of Calgary’s policy on pesticide use is more applicable to our area for now. The Integrated Pest Management Plan (IPM) (Council Policy CSPS032) is available at http://www.calgary.ca/docgallery/bu/cityclerks/council_policies/csps032.pdf.

Not much. While the CRRA is not responsible for combating graffiti vandalism, many residents contact us to see what can be done about it.

The Calgary Police Service and the City of Calgary’s Animal and Bylaw Services can help residents combat graffiti vandalism, and they take it very seriously. They recommend that if you see graffiti you:

Remove graffiti from your property as soon as you notice it. Fresh paint is more easily removed than paint that has had time to bond with a surface. The City of Calgary offers the Private Graffiti Abatement Program to help residents and business owners remove graffiti from their private property. Under the program, residents can pay a $25 fee and sign a waiver granting a City contractor permission to remove the graffiti. All revenue is reinvested into the program. To get help from PGAP, please contact 403.268.1880 or email PGAP@calgary.ca.

Record the crime by taking pictures of the vandalism.

Report graffiti on City or private property by calling 3-1-1. The faster you report graffiti vandalism you see on public property (such as playground equipment, the fence along Old Banff Coach Road, utility boxes, etc), the faster the City of Calgary will send a crew to clean it up). If you see someone in the act of putting up graffiti anywhere in the city, please call the Police at 9-1-1.

Although the fence surrounding Cougar Ridge is technically the property of the adjacent home owners, the City of Calgary will clean up graffiti on the fence along Old Banff Coach Road. However, the adjacent property owners are responsible for cleaning the fence in all other parts of the neighbourhood.

Some residents may be surprised to learn that the responsibility to maintain boulevards adjacent to private homes lies with the homeowner, which is a requirement throughout the City of Calgary pursuant to Bylaw Number 5M2004.

This applies whether the boulevard is separated by a sidewalk or whether the boulevard is immediately adjacent to the private lot, or even on the other side of their fence.

Residents seeking further information about this requirement should visit the City of Calgary’s website or call the City’s general services line at 311.

You may be surprised to learn that the fence is the responsibility of the homeowner on whichever lot it is situated, after purchase from the developer.

Currently, the CRRA is focusing on implementing our core mandate of enhanced landscaping. Once we have established operations for our core mandate, we may consider taking on upkeep and improvement of the fence.

To do this, the CRRA would need the cooperation of all homeowners on which this fence sits, to see if we can maintain it in a visually appealing manner. This would require the permission and explicit approval of all homeowners who have the fence on their property, as well as waiver from them, allowing this work to be done.

The financial burden of repairing the stucco fence bordering Cougar Ridge remains with the individual lot owners. 

The CRRA currently does not get involved in snow removal. This is a City matter. The City bylaw (Bylaw #20M88) for sidewalks adjacent to private land states, among other things, that the owner of the private land is required to remove ice and snow 24 hours after the ice and snow has been deposited.

Pathways are another matter. Snow removal on pathways is the responsibility of The City. Concerns regarding snow clearing should be brought to the attention of the City of Calgary, utilizing the City’s general services line – 311.

The park areas, streets and pathways are the property of the City.  The cost of removing the snow from the pathways would not only wipe out our total budget but we would need to raise the annual fee by at least another $100, without any flowers or landscaping enhancements (snow removal is very expensive). In order to keep everyone happy and to continue with landscaping efforts, the fee would need to be approximately $300/year to provide a budget that would allow for snow removal as well as general landscaping efforts. 

If you are passionate about the CRRA Board taking this issue on, then please consider joining the CRRA Board.