Calgary city councillors will be asked to consider at least a one-year delay in the approval of the Calgary Plan, putting it after the October 2025 municipal election.

A verbal update on the plan is coming to the Jan. 28 Regular Meeting of Calgary city council, however there are no details attached to the agenda item online.

Participants at a meeting of Calgary community association leaders informed LWC that Mayor Jyoti Gondek had suggested a delay in the plan was upcoming. She later confirmed the news in an interview.

The Calgary Plan is the refreshed overarching document to guide planning and development in the City of Calgary over the next 30 years and would amalgamate the Municipal Development Plan (MDP) and the city’s transportation plan. The City’s last update to the plan was back in 2021.

Mayor Gondek said the City of Calgary’s planning unit had heard from community associations that there’s been a lot of heavy lifting by CAs with the number of planning initiatives that have come forward.

There’s also the matter of the City of Calgary’s revamped Land Use Bylaw, which is also in the planning pipeline.

“(Planning) General Manager Deb Hamilton has said that postponing this until next year makes a lot of sense to ensure that the two things come together and that communities feel they’ve been heard,” the mayor told LWC.

The final draft of the plan was first submitted to Calgary’s Infrastructure and Planning Committee back on Dec. 11, 2024.  At that time, councillors were concerned about receiving a package of amendments at 9 p.m. the evening prior without being able to review them.

Ward 2 Coun. Jennifer Wyness expressed concern at that meeting that they were running community consultation on the Calgary Plan at the same time as the citywide rezoning.

“I think the best course of action is committee to defer this so that we can catch up on what glossary changes were made, what definitions and readjustments were made,” she said last December.

“This shows this is being rushed by the nature of a nine o’clock email yesterday. So please defer this so that council can do the work that we are elected to do.”

Planning document a political football?

Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner said she believes administration is recognizing that their work on this file could be leveraged for the upcoming municipal election campaign. Penner was concerned that it could bring about conversations that weren’t based in facts and data.

“So rather than making policy become a political football, they’re going to put a pause on it,” she said.

“What I call into question is those who are willing to use it like a political football to spin narrative for a campaign, rather than spinning narratives for what is good for moving the city forward and moving Calgary forward, and those who are really focused on doing their jobs right now and continuing to do the work of being a councillor, versus those who have made the shift into campaign mode and campaign mode only.”

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he’s been getting a lot of pushback on the Calgary Plan, both from citizens and the development community.

“It’s going back for review. I’ve always supported it being deferred or completely scrapped,” he said.

“I’m not a fan.”

McLean said that with it potentially being pushed back to after the October municipal election, it should become a political issue. He said Calgarians should have a say in how their city grows.

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp, who chairs the Infrastructure and Planning Committee, said these kinds of plans are important to help shape the city’s future. Still, she said the document needs to be flexible and with potential amendments, people need time to review it.

“They’re probably playing a little bit of the scenarios in their head, looking at the fact this is rushing it. Things can change, zoning can change,” she said.

Elected for four years: Mayor Gondek

As for it becoming an election issue, Sharp said that anyone can make an election issue out of anything. Whether someone challenges parts of the Calgary Plan is their choice, because the review and amending of the plan is part of the planning process and it will continue whether it’s now, or Q1 or Q2 in 2026.

Sharp did think it was probably a good idea for the Calgary Plan and the revised Land Use Bylaw to come in the same timeframe. She was told the document that’s being presented Tuesday is largely the same document that will come back in 2026.

“And really, these two things should be attached together,” she said.

Mayor Gondek said that some may see it as a political opportunity leading into the municipal election. She said she was elected to serve the City of Calgary for four years and keep civic issues front and centre in that time.

“I am certainly not making it political,” she said.

“I think it’s important to recognize that we are using the Calgary Plan to guide how our city grows into the future. When you think about the fact that 100,000 people moved to the Calgary Metropolitan Area last year, that’s about 275 people a day. We’ve really got to get this right.”

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra said he was disappointed this was being pushed off another year.

“I was going to resign after 11 years of service, and I decided to attempt to serve for another four years after that, to get the Calgary plan and the new land use bylaw over the finish line,” he said.

“The fact that for another four years we’re not delivering that, it’s deeply disappointing.”

He said along with the community impact, City of Calgary planning has also taken a resource and leadership hit, with the loss of Tim Keane and Josh White.

“I think that just a very toxic political environment that turns everything into a clash of civilizations fight is really unfortunate, too,” he said.

“I think between all of those things, the planning department has realized they can’t really bring the they can’t bring the Calgary Plan without the land use bylaw.”