Calgary may not get all of the promised federal housing money over four years, but if they don’t, it won’t be directly connected to a decision on blanket rezoning, LiveWire Calgary has learned.

Dozens of Calgarians opposed to citywide rezoning have claimed the tie to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Liberals and the federal government is pushing the broad land-use change, underpinned by $228 million in recent Housing Accelerator Fund grants.

Back in March, Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that federal funding wasn’t contingent on Calgary passing the controversial citywide rezoning.  At the start of the public hearing this week, Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong asked for a yes or no answer on whether federal housing funding was tied to the citywide rezoning decision.

The answer from city admin: No.

With the debate over the tie to federal funding coming to a head during this week’s public hearing, LWC wanted to investigate the details around Calgary’s obligations to qualify for the funding.

What better way to do that than going to the federal government themselves. LWC asked for specific answers to the same question Coun. Demong posed to City of Calgary admin. 

Here’s the response:

“To earn the full amount of committed funding under the program, applicants must fully implement their approved action plans and meet the housing growth unit targets,” the federal government response read.

“CMHC will consider all relevant circumstances when determining whether to approve annual funding payments.”

The response goes on to say that in the City of Calgary’s Housing Accelerator Fund Action Plan (posted below), it commits to zoning and approval improvements to eliminate exclusionary zoning and accelerate housing supply. They single out city initiatives 2 and 3 in that action plan.

“Both initiatives have milestones referencing redesignations/bylaw amendments which will need to be achieved to receive full funding, per the terms of the funding agreement.”

The federal government response included one interesting part: They referenced the City of Calgary’s Housing Strategy, and that document’s recommendation to pursue citywide upzoning to R-CG, “which allows up to 4-units as-of-right in these new zones.”

“The commitments were part of the application which includes several HAF best practices, allowing Calgary to meet the requirements for its application to be approved.”

This appears to mean the overall funding application was approved on that merit alone. With that came an initial installment of $57,116,569.00.

City of Calgary’s HAF action plan

In the action plan, which is in the appendix of the 16-page Housing Accelerator Fund agreement posted below, there are 7 initiatives and 28 milestones.

The two referred to by the federal government – Initiatives 2 and 3 – read as follows:

• Streamline approvals to increase housing supply, with an expected result of 2,500 estimated permitted units this initiative will incent. Along with this, milestone 1 is to undertake city-initiated redesignation.

• Promote missing middle land use districts, which comes with a 300 estimated unit target, and a milestone to undertake land use bylaw amendments. It also includes a plan for a stormwater incentive program for new communities.

There’s also Initiative 5, which is to enable housing growth in established areas, with an estimated target of 425 units. As a milestone, the Marda Loop Main Streets Streetscape project is required. This looks like it matches up with this project.

Finally, Section B of the agreement provided additional targets. In that, there’s a commitment to 15,956 missing middle housing units (by 2026, when the funding agreement ends).

“Approved applicants receive the first advance upon signing the agreement to assist with implementing their Action Plan,” reads the federal government response.

“Subsequent payments will be made annually for 3 years, subject to program conditions being met. This includes satisfactory progress reviews on commitments made by municipalities.”

At most, the initiatives provide guideposts for the city to follow. There’s no specific prescription for citywide rezoning.

Still, should the City of Calgary not show satisfactory progress toward targets, it may not qualify for the funding.

Demong said it’s in the feds’ hands

The agreement doesn’t specifically state the citywide rezoning must be approved. Demong said that’s why he’s kept asking about citywide rezoning being a condition for federal funding. That doesn’t mean he’s confident it’s not somehow tethered to the decision before them.

“This is not a decision that I get to make. This is a decision that the federal government gets to make,” he told LWC.

“Am I confident? Well, I don’t know if I’m allowed to be confident if I don’t make the decision, but that is my understanding.”

Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek said they’re taking the actions required to meet the conditions of the federal government funding.

“Promote and undertake change – that’s is exactly what we’re doing,” she said.

“It was promoted through the housing strategy, we are undertaking it through a public hearing.”

The mayor added that section 12.3 of the agreement states that nothing in the agreement will “fetter the discretion of the Recipient’s elected council as to future decisions by the elected council.” 

Since the HAF agreement was approved last year, with the pursuit of citywide upzoning already included in the housing strategy approved before that, future decisions don’t restrain the agreement.

“The action plan does not say we will pass this. It says we will promote this, that we will undertake this,” the mayor said.

“Which is exactly what we’re doing. And the deal is signed.”

The extent to which Calgary doesn’t receive funding rests with the annual CMHC review of progress towards the targets.

We’ll find out in a year how well Calgary did.