Calgary will review at least six new communities, on top of three already in the queue, with more applications expected to come in 2025.

According to a briefing note updating city councillors on growth applications, and attached to the agenda for the Jan. 8, 2025, Infrastructure and Planning Committee (IPC), nine new growth applications are in various stages of review.

The administration report foreshadowed additional applications coming forward this year.

“Administration is aware of several imminent Growth Application submissions beyond these, as well,” the briefing note read.

The City of Calgary changed its approach to evaluating and approving new boundary communities, considering them concurrently instead of in annual or biannual tranches. After they’re tentatively approved, the area must be approved for infrastructure and operating funding in the next year’s budget. That process is meant to ensure new communities coincide with the necessary capital infrastructure spending by the City.

Calgary approved four new community plans during the last budget deliberations but didn’t include three. Work is ongoing with the developers and the City of Calgary to move those forward.

The new submissions would include three community plans for Glacier Ridge (one is still pending), two for Belvedere (two already approved) and one for Haskayne.

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp, chair of the IPC, said given the persistent housing need in Calgary, it’s important to consider these new communities carefully.

“What’s important is we’re looking at not just doing inner city development, which is super important, but also looking at building in some of these outlying areas,” she said.

“You need to have that balance. We should not be dictating where people live.”

If the City of Calgary is to meet the current housing demand, all areas of development should be considered, Sharp said.

“People have preferences for where they want to live, and the city needs to provide all options for people anywhere in Calgary,” she said.

Unlocking established area growth

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, whose ward covers both the approved and proposed Belvedere communities, said there’s no way to accommodate Calgary’s population growth unless the City is “full steam ahead” on both greenfield growth and redevelopment of established areas.  He said the city just hasn’t been able to unlock established area redevelopment the way they’ve become adept at building on the city’s edge.

“I don’t think we need to accelerate anything, but we can’t take our foot off the gas until we figure out how to, at scale, accommodate more people in the established areas, and that’s something that still eludes us,” Carra said.

The City of Calgary’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP) calls for a 50/50 growth split between greenfield and established areas within the next 50 years. Carra said the first decade of the MDP has heavily favoured greenfield growth – roughly 10 per cent inner-city and 90 per cent boundary growth.

“Which means that 58 per cent of all growth has to now occur in the established areas for the next five decades, and 42 per cent in the greenfield,” he said.

“There are limits to our growth. We are bumping up against our regional neighbours. We cannot sprawl forever outwards.”

Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian, vice-chair of IPC, and whose ward straddles both substantial new growth communities and established areas, said that there has to be a balance – not just in the split in the growth, but also in how it’s funded.

“I think what’s most important is that we know that there has to be some public investment ensuring that these sites are ready and making sure that we’re spending those public dollars in the way that makes the most sense to bring the most housing online, is what the trick is,” Mian said.

She noted how difficult it can be in the current political climate to get a single land-use change through Calgary city council that might increase housing supply, and it seems easier just to approve entire communities.

“I know as being the Ward 3 councillor, it’s hard to keep up with the necessary public investment out there,” she said.

“So, getting the rec centres, getting the transit out there – growth just comes with these constraints.”

Budget approval is required for new communities

Ultimately, even if the business cases for the proposed new communities are approved, the capital and operating expenditures need to be approved during the annual city budget process.

This year, advocacy group Project Calgary was concerned that the city was spending millions on peripheral growth at the expense of providing quality infrastructure in the communities it already had.

“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 developments on the fringes of the city,” said Project Calgary’s Peter Oliver, back in November.

Coun. Carra said it was important to consider the ideal areas to invest, particularly when you can take advantage of other infrastructure, like transit. He said that’s what’s being done with Belvedere, which is on the eastern edge of Calgary, right next to Chestermere.

“There is a huge demand to live over there. If we invest in Belvedere, people will live in Belvedere. We’re not robbing investments that we’ve made in other parts of the city, or we’re competing with our regional neighbour,” he said.

“If you deliver new homes and primary transit on day one, then all of a sudden, you have created an opportunity for people to choose a much more car-free or a car-light lifestyle. You’re achieving all kinds of goals when you do that.”

There’s another interesting quirk with how this new community process will unfold in 2025. Whatever communities are approved in this latest tranche, before the municipal election, will ultimately be given final approval by a potentially completely different group of councillors come November.

Coun. Mian said that bringing on new communities is fundamentally a budget decision, as councillors weigh different priorities.

“I don’t think it’s the end of the world that we have two different groups looking at that. I think ultimately, we want these to be proceeding, and we wanted a greater line of sight on it,” she said.

“Some of us will be looking at these in advance of a budget decision, and they might be entirely new people, but that’s not something that’s just going to cause hiccups for growth. It’s going to cause hiccups in a lot of different areas. So that’s just the challenge of the election cycle.”

The new growth plans will come sometime in the first half of 2025 for consideration in the 2026 budget, the briefing note read.