In June 2023, Calgary city council voted 8-7 to reject the recommendations of their housing task force. Those voting against were Andre Chabot, Sonya Sharp, Dan McLean, Richard Pootmans, Jennifer Wyness, Terry Wong, Peter Demong, and Sean Chu.
The next day, they voted 10-5 to reconsider. Those voting against were Chabot, McLean, Wyness, Demong and Chu.
More recently, Sharp, Chabot, McLean, Wong, Demong, and Chu put forward a motion to delay until the next municipal election in October 2025, when a plebiscite would be held. 6 city councillors want to send Calgary's rezoning proposal to a plebiscite. CBC, March 7.
Kathryn Davies and Alex McColl of More Neighbours Calgary: Council contingent refuses to act on urgent need for housing strategy. Calgary Herald, March 12.
Once again, some members of city council are shirking their responsibilities by delaying action on the housing crisis.
Calgarians need more safe and affordable homes, and these homes need to get approved and built. A contingent of council would prefer to kick the can down the road to the next municipal election in 2025 as the housing crisis worsens. Moving at the speed of business, indeed.
An informal coalition — councillors Dan McLean, Andre Chabot, Sonya Sharp, Sean Chu, and Terry Wong — opposed to housing affordability appears to have taken shape on council. These five opposed the Housing and Affordability Task Force in June of 2023, opposed (and tried to gut) the Housing Strategy in September, and are now dragging their heels to delay action until the end of their terms.
The Housing Strategy’s base residential rezoning proposal is scheduled for public comment on April 22. These councillors appear to be afraid of what they might hear, or of the decisions they will be forced to make.
With this effort at a plebiscite, they are opting to do nothing instead of listening to Calgarians and responding to an urgent crisis. Councillors Chabot and McLean have a proven track record of voting against plebiscite results, suggesting that their motivation isn’t really about listening to the people.
The motion to hold a plebiscite was defeated 6-8. Calgary plebiscite motion on citywide rezoning defeated; public hearing to go ahead. Global News, March 13.
In a special meeting of council on Wednesday, councillors debated a motion whether or not to cancel next month’s public hearing and instead put the matter to a plebiscite vote during the municipal election in October 2025.
That motion was defeated on a 6-8 vote with councillors Dan McLean, Sean Chu, Peter Demong, Terry Wong, Sonya Sharp and Andre Chabot in favour.
They were the same councillors who brought the motion to council.
Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner responded to broadly-made accusations that councillors didn’t campaign in 2021 on citywide rezoning away from exclusively single detached houses.
“The most fiscally responsible and best use of our tax dollars is to place more people near the infrastructure that already exists: transit, recreation, schools, emergency services and parks,” she said. “I may not have explicitly campaigned on a rezoning of R-CG, but I absolutely did say over and over again that placing people next to the things that already exist in communities, and that it was people that mattered.”