As Calgary city council puts the final strokes to a 2025 budget, a local advocacy group says there’s money to be found for current city services in the cash spent to service new communities.

Project Calgary penned an online post saying that more than $51 million in operating costs and $508 million in capital costs will be doled out over the next several years to service approved new communities in Keystone Hills, Belvedere and South Shepard.

Peter Oliver with Project Calgary said that offsite levies cover only a portion of the costs.

“I think most Calgarians would be shocked if they found out just how much money from their property taxes in their communities is being diverted to develop another four sprawl development on the fringes of the city,” Oliver said.

City budget documents show that the $51 million in operating costs would be stretched out over the next 15 years, starting in 2027. The budget documents indicated that a small portion of the property tax increase required for new growth (.02 per cent) would fund operating costs in 2025-2026. That amount is roughly $460,000.

Capital costs for new communities are pegged at just over $11 million for 2026 but ramp up to around $136 million in 2026, and even more beyond 2027.  What’s not included in the section for capital costs for new growth communities is a planned capital expenditure of $32 million on the Stoney Trail / Memorial Drive flyover and design for the expansion of the Max Purple BRT further east.

“We have these fiscal conservatives who are looking to nickel and dime citizens in existing communities and cutting core funding for very basic services with the aim of lowering the property tax rate while turning completely turning a blind eye to hundreds of millions of dollars in funds redirected to build new sprawl developments,” Oliver said.

‘Factually incorrect’: Coun. Chabot

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said that the majority of new Greenfield growth is done in what are referred to as ‘Master-planned communities.’ This means it has commercial, industrial, retail and residential combining to create a stronger tax uplift in a new area.

Current established communities are often a net negative as they are predominantly residential, single-family dwellings, Chabot said.

“This is part of the problem that the narrative that’s been put out there is that greenfield is subsidized by developed area,” he said.

Chabot went on to say that much of the capital investment is covered through offsite levies eventually paid for by the community developers. Further, that revenue from new growth was around $46 million for next year.

To that end, Chabot said that strategically planned new growth is actually helping pay for investments in infrastructure upgrades in established communities.

This year, Calgary city council moved forward with a new intake process that allows developers to submit concurrent proposed communities. Provided they meet a certain criterion, those communities are tentatively approved and forwarded to that year’s budget deliberations for a final decision.

Still, Oliver said that there’s already a substantial supply of available land already approved for development. As of December 2022, according to city documents, serviced land that’s imminently developable has a capacity of 67,249 dwelling units for roughly 182,156 people. At that time the City predicted that would be a roughly 9-to-12 year supply.

Yet-to-be-serviced land has about a 6-to-9-year supply, city documents read.

“That’s not including supply that comes from redevelopment in existing communities and greyfield sites,” Oliver said.

Chabot said that there’s a greater demand for areas like Belvedere, where the market absorption is high.

“So, should we limit growth in that area to our detriment, and to the benefit of Chestermere especially in light of the fact that we’re building Master Plan communities that will be completely self-supported and actually generate revenue?” Chabot said.

Inadequate money for existing services: Oliver

Ultimately, Oliver said that money being used for operational or capital projects could be used to service the already great need in established areas – particularly around transit infrastructure.

He said when you look at the list of unfunded projects, the city still doesn’t have a 24-hour core skeletal transit system. Calgary Transit said earlier this week that current service levels will continue as they deal with an ongoing revenue shortfall.  Further, the so-called night transit network also remains unfunded, Oliver said.

With a portion of the new operational and capital money going to transit network expansion, Oliver said we need to make the existing service better first.

“It doesn’t really make sense to me when we don’t have adequate in transit service in existing communities today, to be further extending the network, which is currently woefully serviced,” he said.

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said she believes this is a reasonable expense for the City of Calgary to take on as it strives for balanced 50/50 growth, as outlined in the Municipal Development Plan.

“One of the things I’ve realized as a councillor in established areas is, yes, I needed to advocate for established area funding, which we’ve done a really good job of as a council,” she said.

“I’ve also learned that the balance of new growth to support our city, especially as quick as we’re growing, is also important.”

She said we’re competing against regional partners to attract people, and when examining these new areas, they’re focused on areas that already have a good portion of existing infrastructure.

“We are building off of existing investments, which is a smart thing to do,” she said.

“We are still trying to create growth in areas that it makes the most economic sense, which is why, we are looking at four of 12 growth applications. So, to an extent, we are very much slowing down.”

City council 2025 budget deliberations will wrap up on Nov. 22.