It was nearly a decade ago in October of 2014, when Calgary City Council passed the bylaw to transform the then-residential cottage home (R-CH) into the residential grade-oriented infill (R-CG) designation.

In the time since, Calgary Planning Commission and Calgary City Council have looked at and have either approved or denied—or have seen withdrawn—499 applications to rezone properties to R-CG. To date, 382 have been approved, 21 have been submitted, 43 are under review, 35 have been cancelled.

Only 17 have been refused.

Of those 17, five locations were later approved for R-CG after changing their applications. One was changed to R-C2. That left 11 that have been outright rejected by Calgary City Council.

LWC analyzed all of the R-CG applications that were denied from 2016 on, the first year that an application was denied, by looking at the debated reasons that members of Calgary City Council chose to either support or not support an application.

What LWC found predominantly across those denied applications was the perception of councillors that not enough community engagement had been done by applicants to move a land use change forward.

Some other reasons cited to deny applications were the need to protect the character of communities, and the perceived inappropriateness of increased densification, either by the number of units proposed or the inclusion of secondary suites.

The debate over what constitutes sufficient community engagement has extended beyond just Calgary’s largest-ever public hearing on blanket up-zoning.

Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott has criticized the decisions of council when applications are denied over the perceived lack of community engagement.

“If the answer to why we’re approving or approving is based off of our perception of ‘has the applicant talked to people enough about what he wants to do after that,’ that’s not really fair,” Walcott said.

“If we’re expecting people to go to the length of a development permit of what gets built before they even apply, then it means that is proof that council is actually making decisions outside of what’s in front of them. That, to me, has always set a dangerous precedent.”

The question was always what sort of engagement is expected at the land use stage—and that extended to applications made that were denied because of the stated intent by applicants to build larger numbers of units than councillors were comfortable with, Walcott said.

“I think it always has a factor about whether or not we’re allowing people to live differently, or at least to propose living differently, and where. But for me, I’ll give you the best example, is over the course of the last two weeks, one thing that we keep hearing is nodes and corridors… and that’s what the higher density should be,” Walcott said.

“I very rarely see an R-CG or an H-GO over the last three years that’s not on a node and corridor. If it’s that they are larger—everything I’ve heard is that that’s exactly where they’re supposed to be—and yet somehow those decisions don’t land in council. So, it seems like something that we should have a better conversation about if we’re truly serious about nodes and corridors.”

On the other side of the engagement debate has been Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who has leaned towards applicants needing more engagement with community members.

“People feel like they’ve not been brought into the whole engagement process, and a lot of folks feel like they haven’t been heard in this process, and that’s why I keep asking folks about this feedback loop of opportunity: What we heard reported, and providing an opportunity for folks to then rebut some of the assertions that are made by administration based on what they heard,” Chabot said.

“You’ll also notice that the majority of the ones that have been refused, we’re also not supported by a planning policy, ie – wasn’t identified as areas that were supportive through either Area Structure Plans (ASPs) or Local Area Plans (LAPs) In fact, there are several that went through that also weren’t supported by policy and required an amendment to the Area Structure Plan or Area Redevelopment Plan.”

He said that when the high number of approved applications are cited, some 94 per cent, what that really means is 100 per cent of those applications are supported by planning.

“So when you start talking about applying this city-wide in areas that are not supported by planning, you’ve got to assume that there’s going to be at least 6 per cent of those are not suitable.”

Follow through or fatigue: Opinions different on subsequently approved applications

Of the denied applications that are then reapplied for to return in front of council for consideration, opinion likewise diverges on the reasons why those applications are approved.

Coun. Walcott said that the big question is whether the requested changes are actually worth it to applicants.

“I know a lot of people will spend a significant amount of time and money to to envision a future, and to have it denied sometimes, there’s a lot of sunk costs. People might end up just selling the property to someone else and letting them decide what to do with it later. For the ones that came forward, the big question I always have is what is the degree of change?” Walcott said.

Using an example of a Marda Loop H-GO application, he said that the application was eventually approved after the number of units dropped from 22 to 20.

“We did we ended up increasing the cost of all of those houses units, collectively, over two units of change. We probably have to ask the question of whether the cost increases that are now levied against the future homeowner, are worth the fact that you might have two less neighbours on a parcel like that, when we consider the 20 is appropriate, but not an additional two,” he said.

Speaking to one R-CG application location that was put before council three times before being approved, he said that speaks to a knowledge gap that needs to be addressed between council, applicants, and community members.

“That doesn’t indicate a problem with the R-CG, because if there’s a problem with R-CG, it would have always got denied,” Walcott said.

Coun. Chabot though said that there is frequently an issue with fatigue amongst community members to continually oppose projects if they come before council multiple times.

“Folks will come and they’ll oppose something, and then they get ridiculed for opposing things. So they’re reluctant to come back to council,” he said.

“Contrary to what a lot of people think, presenting to council is intimidating. All members of council that have not had that experience may not or may not appreciate just how intimidating it is to present a council. I’ve been on both sides of that bar, and I can tell you personally, even after I presented multiple times to city council, every time I came before them it always felt intimidating,” he said.