One Calgary inner-city builder said regardless of which way the city’s rezoning debate goes, he wants to build capacity so that property owners can upzone as they like.
Alkarim Devani, co-founder of RNDSQR, a middle housing developer who built 200 homes and 300 apartments in eight years, is now helping others transform their properties.
He, along with Darlene Jehn, professional planner and co-founder and president of RNDSQR, have founded a new “citizen-led platform” called Mddl (pronounced ‘middle’) that guides property owners through the inner-city development process.
“What’s become more and more clear when it comes to gentle density or middle housing is that we need to build capacity and we need a solution that can actually put current community members and homeowners in the center of that process,” Devani told LiveWire Calgary.
Devani said he can’t promise that every property owner can become a developer. They will, however, release all of the knowledge they have on developing so-called missing middle housing.
“We’re releasing our playbook. We’re creating a middle school, which will basically be our full-day program session from start to finish,” Devani said.
They’ll tell people what the site has to look like, the nuances of the development permit process, appeals, financing and some of the contractors and architects who can help make it happen.
“My hope is by me providing this opportunity, folks will for the first time be able to say, ‘wait a second, I do have a choice,’” Devani said.
“There’s a tool here that can help me go through this process.”
Devani said he’s not there to say supply alone is going to decrease housing costs. He said Calgary needs housing diversity.
“I don’t think we solve middle housing, nor do we actually, help solve any kind of housing needs if we can’t put the homeowners at the center of this model,” he said.
Mddl is hosting its first DIY developer crash course on April 19 at the Calgary Central Library from 9 to 2 p.m.
