Calgary’s development appeal board has ruled against a 10-townhouse development on a uniquely difficult site causing relaxations “beyond what is reasonable” and preventing neighbours from “use and enjoyment of their property.” 

The decision marks the end of three years of community opposition to the development at the corner of 19 Street and ⅚ avenues in West Hillhurst, at a skewed intersection on a block with no back alley. Traffic sight line issues, single driveway access, and an Enmax power line restricting development were cited as reasons overturning the development permit. The board dismissed resident concerns about privacy and shadowing.

For those of us volunteering in the community, this is an important decision because it lays bare the extent to which city planners will bend the rules to benefit a developer after a city greenspace sale. 

And, worse, this land sale was done in secret, as per city policy.

The relaxation gymnastics for this development included minimal setbacks, contextual setbacks, entry orientation, landscaping requirements, garage bin locations, undersized amenity space, third floor setbacks, landscaping requirements and tree plantings in which the city redefined the caranga bush as a tree so the developer could meet the tree requirement. The relaxations allowed the developer to cram in more units (my words).  

All this to say I have a quaint notion. What if city planners and city council had listened to us in the community in the beginning? 

Working Class History: 19 Street is Special

From my view, this stretch of 19 Street is special. The five blocks between Kensington Rd. and ⅚ avenues boast both housing and commercial areas including Dairy Lane restaurant and Made by Marcus ice cream.  

This stretch could have been a wonderful historic and tourism area paying homage to working class history. These Victory homes were built for soldiers returning from World War II and even today some families are still hanging on and living in them–and renovating them. 

Homes are small and affordable. Calgary needs more housing, but I’ll argue too, that we need to hang on to cheaper housing and historical areas that are irreplaceable. 

But the street lacked a champion. 

A few years ago, some residents came up with a plan called Decision 19 but were rebuffed by the former councillor and the City.  Developers snapped up many of these lower-priced homes to rent them out, land speculate, or tear them down for bigger homes or higher density developments.  It’s a heavily contested stretch with three appeals in recent years and more brewing. 

2021 Community finds out Greenspace on 19 Street sold… In secret

In 2021, our community planning committee received news of plans to upzone the triangular greenspace at the busy southeast corner of 19 Street and 5/6 avenues, one block west of a K-12 public school.

It was a bit of a shock. The city had planted seven city trees, mowed the grass, and routinely sprayed pesticides there. Then, 311 told me it was a park. But then it was sold. How did we miss this?

“Remnant parcel transactions are not publicly marketed and as such neighbours are not advised of the sale,” a former Ward 7 staffer wrote in an e-mail. 

The sale is solely approved by the Director of Real Estate. It doesn’t go before city council either.

City policy is not to put the land to public bidding if it’s not big enough to be developed on its own. Sadly, this is the way communities find out their parks are not parks at all, but remnant lands. 

This led Coun. Courtney Walcott to comment, “We’ve had conflicts with those pieces of land before because communities have fought over them and said ‘this is a park’. But really it’s just been an undeveloped piece of land for 30 years,” on April 14, as council voted unanimously to identify all city parks property. 

This doesn’t help. The greenspace may have been small but it was big for our community. For the adjacent neighbours, it provided a buffer from the road.  

This greenspace also served as the muster point for the West Hillhurst Community Association across the street. As the trees flourished, volunteers were discussing activating the greenspace as a place for bike tools and, perhaps, a water fountain. In a community with little greenspace, it provided a tiny forest – and the city even had a program for tiny forests.

Not telling us seemed aggressive and alienating. The city won’t provide sale details but the land title shows a cancelled land title and land transfer for $90,000 to Ching An Wang, listed at an northeast Calgary address for Gold Homes, on Oct. 30, 2020. The city confirmed the sale closed a day later.  This consolidated the land with 530 – 19 Street, the post war bungalow next door which shared a driveway with the bungalow at 526 – 19 Street.

Our community planning committee was asked by the owner to back a rezoning application from zoning of RC-2 (singles and duplexes) to MU for a 2-storey commercial and condos. K2Designs told us that the owner lived in the neighbourhood and simply wanted a passive income in retirement and to take care of elderly parents. 

The owner wrote their  “dream was to run a little shop” at the location. The owner said they owned 530 and 526 – 19 Street and that the post war bungalows were now hard to rent, as they were so close to a busy intersection.

Here, I agreed. The proposed development would sit at a busy skewed intersection that is across from a community centre, and a route to the combined public elementary/highschool with painted bike lanes on 6 AV and some sort of new 19 Streetscape project in the works. How would all this fit together with more cars/trucks, deliveries, at that intersection?

Because rezoning applications don’t come with building plans, it’s tricky to know what the building will look like. The owner’s suggestion of commercial stores at this tricky intersection concerned us. Safety concerns were incredibly heightened: Four children were hit by vehicles in West Hillhurst in 2022.

2022: The Rezoning Public Hearing at City Council

In November 2022, I signed up to speak online at the public hearing for rezoning as the community’s volunteer transportation chair. After 12 hours of waiting, the agenda item came up. A series of residents spoke first. Key, they said, is there is no alley for this stretch of 19 Street so no buffer from the development. They cited lack of privacy, shading of their yards, and lack of parking. 

My turn: First, the zoning required primary transit. West Hillhurst has no primary transit. Secondly I argued this was a dangerous intersection. It was irregular and skewed. It was one block over from a large K-12 school. The development would violate the city’s own Step Ahead pedestrian and cycling policies with more vehicles driving over sidewalks and into our bike lanes.

Some on council wavered on the safety issue: Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said she wasn’t sure which way she was going to vote. Ward 14 Coun. Demong called the rezoning an accident waiting to happen. The mayor, citing a raging snow storm, asked all to come back the next day. 

Unfortunately, in my view, this gave the development forces time to fortify their resources for the next day and no opportunity for public input. Consider that billions of dollars are being made on inner city real estate and this triangle land was a microcosm of this bonanza. At the same time, with limited tools, the city is under pressure to provide more housing.

The next day, council voted 9-6 in favour of moving ahead and decided that the city staff would work with the owner on transportation safety at the site, then the applicant would come back with a combined development permit and rezoning application. We’d know what the building and driveways would look like. 

People told me this was a “success.”  I only wished the city would give the community the same consideration and city staff to work with us, too. 

2023 and 2024: A new Development Permit and Rezoning

For several years, the trees on the greenspace continued to grow and flourish. City pesticides were still sprayed on the property. No more children were hit by cars in our community. New designs came to the planning committee from Vera Architecture: a tight 10-townhouse development with one driveway on 19 Street to mitigate safety concerns.  

Cars exiting would be asked to not turn left southbound onto 19 Street, and and cars coming southbound on 19 Street could not turn left into the driveway where there’s a solid line so close to the intersection. We didn’t think people would obey all these no turn signs. There was also no place for visitors or drop offs. Concerns about the intensity of the development and lack of laneway persisted. We were unable to find out about any relaxations granted to the development. File managers will not provide them.

The community planning committee wrote in opposition of the development permit. 

City Council, however, thought differently and the M-CG upzoning and the development permit were approved on April 11, 2024. There was no public hearing as this was considered second and third reading.

On April 17, 2024, the land title for the land including 530 – 19 Street showed owners as Ching An Wang and Handa Ni of the same address in University Heights. Transfer of Land: $550,000.  (The home and greenspace were now one parcel). For 526 – 19 Street NW the land title shows the same owners. Transfer of Land: $600,000. 

2024: An appeal is launched 

Residents sharing a property line with the approved development appealed to the Calgary Subdivision and Appeal Board. This meant there was now public disclosure of relaxations granted to the developer which were denied to the public before. And wow: the documents showed a cascade of at least 13 relaxations.

This was the first time they were publicly available as the City of Calgary file managers will no longer provide community planning committees with a list of relaxations for a development permit. 

We are supposed to say “if it fits into the community” without knowing if a development violates bylaws and other rules. This diminishes community input even further and leaves us open to criticisms of commenting on community character. 

The city does not list its relaxations on the development map during the commenting period either.  I queried the city about why it doesn’t provide relaxation information to the community during the commenting period or and I did not get an answer. The city said residents can look up documents on property research by coming to city hall during work hours.

This does not help planning committees which the city uses for feedback. This also has never been an option told to residents – and even if so, property research forbids any copying of documents or taking notes so a committee could not even discuss the findings and formulate a response.

2024: The Appeal Hearing – A Cascade of Relaxations

The appeal was July 10, 2024. Now an appeal, in my view, is a failure of city planning and a failure of the applicant working to address community concerns. 

Appealing is expensive. At the July appeal hearing both the residents and owners had hired consultants costing thousands of dollars. I’d seen these two face off before: Carol McClary, a former city planner for the appellants, and Rick Grol, the former head of the subdivision and appeal board for the owners. 

Carol McClary had won for residents on 19 Street before in a decision that found a development did not fit the parcel of land and the city had misrepresented key facts. 

Rick Grol, on the other hand, won an SDAB appeal overturning the city’s correct decision to deny a liquor store that violated bylaw as being too close to another one.

You can see just how fluid rules are in this development permit world.

The 19 Street appeal kicked off with one board member saying he’d never seen so many relaxations on a file. City of Calgary brought four staff. The City of Calgary file manager countered by saying the city considered the shape of the site and property lines which created a lot of relaxations but the city considered them minor.

And so the hearing went. 

What you have to know is this: Residents want the city to stick to the rules and developers believe rules are there to be bent and that’s the way things work. 

There was concern about traffic safety at the skewed intersection yet we heard this didn’t justify a transportation impact assessment by the city as it is triggered by trips per hour.

There was a question about whether any vehicle could actually get in and out of the small garages designed for the development, especially SUVs or larger vehicles; there was a discussion about whether ‘caraganas’ were really a bush or a tree as they now qualified for trees in the plan. 

The residents detailed how they’d raised their concerns many times over the years. They argued for their privacy and against shading the new development would cause. They pointed out the architectural drawings were flawed, making the new development out of scale and looking lower than it actually was. Importantly, one drawing submitted by the developer eliminated the residents’ backyards and made it look like there was an alley where none exists.

The residents’ consultant Carol McClary worked her way through the 13 or so myriad relaxations on the site and determined the owner got a benefit. She argued that the setback relaxation allowed another two units to fit and did not fit the parcel. There needs to be a consistent approach, she argued. 

“The development authority has exceeded their jurisdiction in granting multiple relaxations that are insensitive and incompatible and abandon standards that are applicable to projects,” McClary said. 

The owner identified himself as John Handa Ni and said he owned the property with his brother in law Ching An Wang. Rick Grol represented him.

Grol said the neighbourhood was changing and showed the board the various townhouse and condo developments in the area and cited the changing context of the community. He used the words affordable housing. He said there are always relaxations on developments and landscaping relaxations are too stringent. He believed the test for relaxations was met. He argued that the development granted two more parking spots than required and that he has no problem ever parking on 19 Street. 

He segued into his views that many university students these days don’t have drivers licences and it’s possible to walk downtown from this location. He dismissed residents’ concerns as ‘anecdotal’ and not based on planning principles. (Note: I remember these were the same words he’d used in his unsuccessful appeal on 19 Street a few years ago.) He also asserted that city council approved this.

To which McClary rebutted that city council did not envision all the relaxations when it approved the development permit.

The city’s chief urban designer David Down championed the project. He spent time rebutting appellants’ description of the development as  “generic.” He called it “bespoke.” And so the reframing went.

In the August 1 decision, the board said the test for the land use bylaw was not met and cited compatibility to adjacent developments, vehicle circulation and sound planning principles.

Did this need to happen? 

A difficult intersection should have triggered an independent transportation assessment at the DP process. City planners should have tempered developer density expectations due to lack of an alley. Residents should have access to all information about a file. Greenspace should not be sold in secret without community consultation or a land trust to buy it. 

This appeal provided residents due process and justice.

At the same time, the city has brought in a new form of zoning: H-GO. 

Punchline: It’s not appealable.