Calgary council approves infill housing policy
Passes 9-6 after a month-long marathon public hearing
For the last month, Calgary’s been holding a public hearing on one of the recommendations from their housing task force: making R-CG the base zoning for residential areas, allowing infill housing: rowhouses, townhouses, duplexes, and “cottage housing clusters.” More than 700 people signed up to speak.
On Tuesday they voted 9-6 to approve the change.
Calgary councillors approve blanket citywide rezoning after amendments. Scott Strasser and Michael Rodriguez, Calgary Herald.
Calgary city council passes amended rezoning bylaw after longest meeting ever held. Kylee Pedersen, CBC.
Danielle Smith reacts to Calgary council’s vote to pass blanket rezoning. Melissa Gilligan, CTV. “She says it concerns her if municipalities feel that they have pressure from the federal government to change their policies in order to get funding.”
Yes to citywide rezoning, will city hall face Calgarians' wrath? Rick Bell, Calgary Herald. Alex McColl points out that Bell supported these changes when it was Poilievre talking about them.
There were a number of amendments. Alex McColl describes them as a necessary compromise:
RCG townhouses and 4plexes would've been permitted (by-right) but now require a discretionary development permit with a public consultation. The new higher parking min outside of the listed communities or 600m of transit make townhouses with basement suites impossible to build.
More
Joel Laforest live-tweeted for the first five days of the public hearing.
Daily recaps from the Unsprawling podcast.
A YouTube short: Mike Moffatt explains how four-plexes help to make home ownership more affordable. “There's just not a market right now to build that many $2 million homes on a piece of property. But could you build a fourplex and sell each of those units for $750,000, for $3 million total? You might be able to do that. So that's why being able to build things like fourplexes is so important.”
Brad Hargreaves on how housing cuts across the usual left-right lines: The weird politics of housing abundance. “Generally, the right’s views on housing breaks on individualist vs communitarian lines. While individualists on the right tend to prioritize private property rights, right-leaning communitarians instead emphasize a community’s right to set collective guidelines—including defining an in-group and an out-group—even if the rights of individuals to use their property freely are impinged.”
Just had to post this, with pride. So Jyoti Gondek defended her vote in the Calgary Herald the other day, comments were not positive. (Of course, all Postmedia comments reveal that they are about 50% actual Trump fans...)
Here was my comment:
Roy Brander 1 day ago
Conservative columnist Jen Gerson wrote that "Nobody will Fix Housing", in a famous article a few years back. And it's because the majority (already housed) profit from the high prices.
Everybody wanted housing fixed, but nobody wanted to take the risk of lowering the value of houses.
You did so, and will now be ritually slaughtered by angry NIMBYs, but somebody had to bell the cat.
Thank you for your service.
Got a new personal best: 20 "thumbs down". Also, one "thumbs up". I wonder who the other SFD apostate is.
My friends and relatives in Calgary are scandalized and vengeful. I wondered why that mayor got elected with a plurality in all 14 wards? All these rotten council were elected - did they not warn their voters they'd vote for rezoning?
I went looking for platforms, news stories from the campaign about debates, and I couldn't find a MENTION of "housing" problems or solutions. Nope! Not a topic! As recently as 2021, it wasn't on Calgary's radar.
So, they elected that council on other topics, but were horrified when they turned on Calgary's (vast majority of) SFD owners.
It's a pathetic whine: I was able to use my GIS skills and water-system data to map all the water services in Calgary since 2000: http://brander.ca/CalgaryC21.png
... in blue, all the new single services, a thick ring, around the city, a few rebuilds in the middle.
... in red, "duplex" services that include all the thousands of infills that you CAN build in Calgary, doubling the number of houses on hundreds of blocks where you see a lot of red dots.
...which is about all that will happen. There just haven't been that many 4-plexes built in Vancouver; the density will mostly come from 2-plexes of various kinds: duplexes, infills.
The council is probably toast, of course; they should be thanked for their service and making the hard choice.