Calgary city councillors refused to reconsider a series of land use amendments this week, sparking a strong rebuke from city builders and developers.  

On May 28, after councillors once again refused to split out “housekeeping” land use amendments from an omnibus motion initially put before the public hearing meeting of council on May 7, both the Inner City Builders Association and 18 city developers sent letters to Calgary city council expressing their frustration.

Twelve bylaw amendments were proposed, with six related to setback, parcel coverage, mobility storage units and other rules that City of Calgary administration said resulted in unnecessary development permits, relaxations and added costs to housing.

Three amendments cleaned up language in the bylaw, two provided operating flexibility for health care services, and one allowed for the discretionary use of childcare services in an existing or approved building within residential districts.

Based on the debates in council, most councillors had little issue with the bulk of the changes, particularly for the childcare services. Still, there were concerns about the changes to the mobility storage lockers and the removal of the specific development permit appeal timeline.

No councillors put forward a plan to split out the ones they liked and didn’t and instead defeated the whole thing. Then, failed to reconsider that decision.

Ward 1 Coun. Sonya Sharp said she would have preferred to see the childcare change come as a separate Notice of Motion.

“I will not be supporting a reconsideration, because I fundamentally believe these are not housekeeping amendments when you look at the list in front of you,” she told her fellow councillors.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the reconsideration before them this week was a chance to break things apart – something they didn’t do the first time around.

“It just gives you the chance to either vote against everything again, if you want to, or to pick out the things that are important to you, and vote for those separately,” she said.

“It removes the omnibus need that we had last time.”

‘Frustration’: Developers and builders

In a letter sent to the mayor and councillors, representatives from Anthem Properties, Bankside Properties, Battistella Developments and Bucci, expressed their displeasure with the decision, singling out five councillors in doing so.

“We write to express our disappointment and frustration in Council’s recent failure to pass the Land Use Bylaw Housekeeping Amendments after a second reconsideration opportunity was presented to the whole of Council,” the letter read.

“If individual items within the omnibus package of amendments were unacceptable to some on Council, we do not understand why Councillors Sharp, McLean, Chabot, Wong and Wyness would not at least support reconsideration through voting separately on each of the individual amendments.”

The letter goes on to say that the proposed amendments would have reduced red tape, allowing for increased supply and more affordability of homes in established areas.

The Inner City Builders Association, in a letter from 12 board of directors’ signatories, expressed similar disappointment in city council. They said they appreciated that councillors didn’t approve of all of the items, but a reconsideration and then discussion on each of them could have happened.

“The introduction of politics to administrative, housekeeping amendments is a dangerous exercise, as it will most definitely result in worse outcomes for the established areas of our city,” the letter read.

“It reduces our ability to deliver much-needed housing units, and it erodes housing affordability across the city.”

Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who isn’t running for re-election this fall, said this is the epitome of red tape.

“Every member of council says, ‘I don’t believe in red tape. We need to cut it. We need to stop making ridiculous, onerous problems for the delivery of housing and the delivery of health care and the delivery of child care,’ and yet, twice in a row, now, given the opportunity to cut red tape, they members of council instead voted it down, “ Carra told LWC.

“They’re saying one thing and they’re doing another, and it’s chaos. It’s not leadership.”

Carra said the issue is now back to “square one,” and it remains to be seen how any of these items may come forward at city council.

Editor’s note: The original story mentioned that there were four developers signed on to the above left letter, however, LWC received a truncated copy of that letter that didn’t show all of the developers. We have amended the story with the updated number of signatories and the updated letter.