Calgary city hall was all a-bustle Monday for day one of the public hearing on citywide rezoning.
Citizens eager for their chance to have their voice heard in the largest-ever public hearing in Calgary’s history started trickling into city hall as early as 8 a.m. for a 9:30 a.m. start.
The public hearing to enable citywide upzoning to R-CG has been a contentious issue across Calgary, and both sides came out in force Monday to stake their claim.
Meadowlark Park resident Verna Leask said she’s worried about losing the right to have a say in development issues in her community. The passage of the new bylaw would eliminate the need for a public hearing in land use matters around the R-CG designation.
“It hampers our ability to have any say on what kind of developments happen, and it takes away the democratic rights of all Calgarians. It does nothing to address affordability, housing or housing affordability,” Leask said.
She was part of a group against the citywide rezoning plan. They gathered at the municipal plaza as a public show of opposition before the start of Monday’s meeting.
“I have been a volunteer my entire life,” Leask said.
“I’ve been involved in the guidebook public hearings, and I’m very active speaking on behalf of our community, and to have that taken away where we no longer have a voice or have any input, is important.”
Inam Teja, a policy and advocacy special for the Calgary Drop-In Centre, who spoke in the first panel at the public hearing in favour of citywide rezoning, and also participated in a noon-hour rally of supporters. He said he’s someone with a good-paying job but living in his parents’ basement due to housing affordability challenges.
“We’re seeing unprecedented rent hikes and a surge in the number of people needing our services at the Drop-In center, and this is a part of Calgary’s Home is Here housing strategy to increase housing affordability,” he said.
“We’re here to see that this gets over the finish line.”
Different perspectives show up at public hearing
Common themes emerged early on from those both for and against, reflecting much of the debate on this issue over the past several months.
Issues with housing affordability, choice and supply for those struggling to find places to live were primary concerns for those speaking in favour of blanket rezoning. Those against the measure felt they were having their voices in community development cut off, plus doubted the ability for this measure to create significant additional supply.
While the typical pros and cons were heard from many speakers, a handful of speakers brought forth relatively new perspectives.
Barry Bortnick, a Ward 7 resident who lives in Crescent Heights, said he was on the fence about rezoning, but generally against if challenges with nuisance issues – and how quickly they were handled by city bylaw – were not addressed.
“You can’t increase density and not expect to have knock-on effects with all the other city services that will see increased usage in proportion to density,” he said.
When asked if the quality of issues could better be addressed, would he be supportive, Bortnick said yes.
“If I could report on the 311 app, it might only take me a few seconds, and the issue would might be addressed in a few days and repeat or scofflaw offenders would be appropriately punished so that things don’t reoccur occur constantly, yeah, I would have been supportive,” he said.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said it was important to hear these different perspectives.
“I think one of the biggest things that council has been saying for the last couple of years is we’ve got to step up our game when it comes to responding to what the public expects, particularly when it comes to enforcement of bylaws,” she said.
“I would say that that particular speaker was a very interesting person to hear from. His position was, I could agree with this if I knew that bylaw enforcement was going to be happening. That’s a perspective that I hadn’t heard before. So, this is why public hearings are so important. You get to see where people are coming from.”
The neutral position
Becky Poschmann, an urban planner who has done research on public engagement from the perspective of Calgary’s community associations, said she supports redevelopment in the city’s established areas.
“The type of redevelopment that I am most supportive of is the type that introduces a variety of housing styles is supported by the long-term statutory plans that affect it, and that the overall concept of and design fits within the context and the characteristics of the community,” she told councillors.
She said both throughout the rezoning process and listening to presentations Monday, she questioned the goals of citywide rezoning. She asked if it was to improve housing supply and affordability or to reduce red tape for developers. Poschmann said that if it’s the latter, it just benefits those who can build housing products that are out of reach for those facing housing hardships.
Further, Poschmann said her research around engagement shows that the city often takes an ‘inform’ approach on what’s being built, rather than a dialogue approach that zeroes in on and addresses community concerns ahead of time.
“We tend to focus a lot on who’s coming into the neighbourhood, and that’s all fine and good, but we tend to also forget about those who are already living there,” she said.
“It’s those that are living there that are frustrated with this process because it seems as though our voices are not heard.”
Poschmann suggested aligning the upzoning with those communities that have already adopted Local Area Plans, and then apply it to the 50-plus Calgary neighbourhoods as they finalize their Local Area Plans.
They’re here all week
While the busyness of the municipal building in the morning died down to barely a dull roar by the dinner break, this is a marathon sitting of council.
It’s been planned to go all week, perhaps next.
For some councillors, the overwhelming response was expected.
“It’s exactly what I expected. A lot of people signing up for this public hearing, a lot of passion in the community supporting, not supporting blanket rezoning,” said Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp.
“I think we’re going to hear a wide variety of opinions… We’re going to hear a lot of repeat that we heard when folks came to speak to the housing strategy and that is great. I think we need to start getting down to the crux of why everyone is here this week.”
The notion of this being the same as Calgary’s secondary suites debate, with lots of debate and worry but relatively little impact to residents, didn’t wash with Coun. Sharp.
“First of all, 700 people did not sign up for secondary suites. And we’re talking about secondary Suites, which is already part of a primary residence,” she said.
“This is talking about redevelopment of parcels that can include up to a number of secondary suites. I was actually in administration when secondary suites were brought to the forefront. We did not see the outcry that we’re seeing with the upzoning that’s being proposed.”
The question of federal funding being tied to Calgary’s decision on upzoning came up a couple of times. When Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong asked the direct question to city administration, they said no, it didn’t impact federal funding.
Mayor Gondek said that they’d submitted a Housing Accelerator Fund application to the federal government before they put conditions on that funding. Recently, she said a lot of the announcements have been tied to conditions.
“That’s not what was happening when we applied for the Housing Accelerator Fund,” she said.
What makes it a bit murky is that when LWC published a story back in March about housing funding not being tied to rezoning, federal housing Minister Sean Fraser quoted the story on the X platform, and implied that if Calgary didn’t meet conditions, they wouldn’t get funding.
