Alberta’s largest affordable housing provider has broken ground on a new development in Calgary’s northwest. 

In partnership with the city, Calgary Housing announced on June 5 that a new 16-home development is underway and scheduled to be completed by summer 2026 in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.

Situated just off 20 Avenue NW, directly beside St. Joseph Park, the city-owned plot of land will eventually be home to an estimated 45 residents who will have an off-leash dog park and playground available at their doorstep.

Apart from community amenities, the city’s chief housing officer, Reid Hendry, said that the units will be increasingly environmentally friendly, coming equipped with solar panels and backup natural gas for heating and cooling, for example.

“This development features double the minimum requirements for barrier-free and adaptable living homes,” he said. 

With a total construction budget of $7.9 million, the Mount Pleasant project includes $3.7 million from the provincial government and an amalgamated sum of $1.5 million from the federal government’s Affordable Housing Partnership with Alberta.

Member of Parliament for the Calgary Confederation constituency, Corey Hogan, was unable to attend the announcement in person, but said in a statement that the federal government will continue to prioritize funding for these types of initiatives. 

“The Government of Canada is using every tool available…to build homes at a scale and speed not seen since the Second World War,” read the statement. 

“We remain committed to investing in Calgary’s future so that everyone has a place to call home.”

In the first quarter of 2025, Calgary initiated the most housing starts nationwide. Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that affordable housing is often seen as unattainable, but that the city has shown that this narrative is changing. 

“Here in Calgary, we are shifting that,” she said.

“Because the truth is, we cannot afford not to be invested in homes like this.”

A closer look at the homes being built

Calgary Housing (CH) CEO, Sarah Woodgate, said that although the city’s housing start numbers are celebration-worthy, only a small fraction of residents have it in their budget to afford the almost 2,000 move-in-ready homes announced in January 2025. 

“While it’s incredible, we also need homes for everyone with the right supply,” she said.

“To increase affordable housing supply, you need three ingredients: land, predictable funding…and financing — and that’s how this project came.”

Woodgate defined the project design as mixed-income, which is CH’s signature development strategy that combines non-market housing and government subsidies to offer affordable units at low rates.

She said this means that subsidies are solely required for the construction of the units and not for future costs. Since the development is intended to house people from low, middle, and high financial standings, the rent received from tenants is enough to satisfy operating costs.

Woodgate told the story of Catherine, a single mother of two toddlers who left a violent relationship and found housing in one of CH’s mixed-income units in 2006. At that time, she was paying low-income tenant prices while studying nursing and raising her children. 

Today, Catherine’s a successful healthcare worker who still lives in the mixed-income unit, now paying prices in the high-income bracket. Essentially, Woodgate said that Catherine is now in the financial position to help someone who was once in her shoes. 

“These are the stories about why we need to increase housing supply like this,” she said.

Currently, she said that CH is in the process of building 680 homes and that this number is expected to grow to 3,000 with time. In Mount Pleasant, she said the new unit will help to grow the neighbourhood’s population by thousands. 

Ward 7 Coun. and CH board member, Terry Wong, said that the community has been home to a variety of citizens since its establishment in 1912, and that the upcoming affordable housing initiative will only continue to add vibrancy to the area.

“It’s about building a greater sense of community, a greater sense of diversity, particularly occupational,” he said. 

“This is an opportunity to do that.”