Calgary city councillors will now consider a series of single land use bylaw amendments, originally part of an omnibus motion that was defeated earlier this year.

Six separate Notices of Motion that were once part of a single Notice of Motion initially defeated during a May 6 public hearing meeting of council, and subsequently failed a reconsideration motion, will be review for technical merit at the June 17 Executive Meeting of Calgary city council.

Councillors at the time debated the validity of some aspects of the motion but couldn’t agree on all of the items.

Now, they’ve been split up and will be decided individually. The items include separate motions on allowing childcare services in locations, low-density residential development, storage lockers and bike parking in multi-residential, definition updates, expired text and error removal, and one on appeals and notifications of decisions.

It’s the latter one that was a problem for Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who voted against both the original motion and the reconsideration.

“When it was brought back as a reconsideration, I voted against it, because I knew then that the numbers were there to support all of them, even the ones I didn’t agree with,” said Chabot.

He said it was a politically calculated decision.

“Some of those motions that would have had some unintended consequences, and negative unintended consequences from my perspective, and if I had allowed the reconsideration to go through, they would have gone through just along with all the others,” he said.

“It’s the one or two that I have a problem with. That’s why I had to vote them all down, because it was an all or none thing from my perspective.”

Red tape, additional time to get housing, says Mayor Gondek

Mayor Jyoti Gondek said that there was an offer to reconsider all of these land use bylaw amendments and then vote on them individually. That wasn’t enough for a group of councillors who are running in the next municipal election, she said.

“This is the thing that I cautioned. When you have people who are more interested in electioneering than actually doing their job as members of council, you face delays, and you have red tape, and that’s what we’ve got right now,” she said.

The mayor said the group of councillors who opposed both the omnibus motion and the reconsideration were offered due process with separate opportunities to speak on and vote on the individual motions.

“This is creating red tape, and it is creating delay, and it’s because you have a party that is actively running a campaign interfering with council business,” the mayor said.

Coun. Chabot said he agrees with being able to move fast on the creation of housing, but only once there is a proper process in place.

“Well, sometimes in order to be able to move forward, you have to take the time to make sure that what you’re moving forward with is done right,” he said.

“If that means take a little extra time to actually get the right legislation in place to ultimately save time long term, then, yeah, you know what – short-term pain, long-term gain.”

The items will only be heard on technical merit at the June 17 meeting. If they pass technical merit, they will go to a future meeting of council. If they are approved, then the bylaws will be advertised and brought to the Sept. 9 public hearing meeting of council.