The timeline was tweaked by a month, and some language was massaged, but the repeal of Calgary’s citywide rezoning bylaw will move ahead, with a potential $1.2 million cost for just for the public hearing.
The largely new council took some extra time to review the motion to repeal citywide rezoning and ask questions at the Nov. 17 Executive Committee meeting.
Some of the tweaks to the original notice of motion include moving the expected return of a proposed bylaw to a March date for public hearing, instead of mid-February.
“The March date actually works better because it’s in around spring break as well. So (it could) make it easier, because there’s nothing else on our council calendars that it will interfere with,” said sponsoring councillor, Ward 10’s Andre Chabot.
“It may even actually promote greater participation, because some of the kids may not actually be in school.”
Also, according to Debra Hamilton, GM of Planning and Development Services, there was clarification around the land use types that would revert to their original state, and the application types that are already in the system that would be exempt from the return to the prior state.
The timeline of the repeal would move along like this: the item would come to a December meeting of Calgary city council for debate to see if they will even move ahead with the repeal. If approved, it requires a 19-day advertising period for the public hearing and all of the preparations that go into it.
When asked about the cost of the last public hearing on citywide rezoning, GM Hamilton referred to report EC2024-0692.
“The cost to prepare the public hearing was $945,000 and cost for the public hearing itself was $330,000, for a total of $1.275 (million),” Hamilton said.
“That doesn’t include systems work and that kind of thing; that was mainly focused on the public hearing itself.”
Public engagement not included.
The one cost that’s not part of the repeal is a brand-new public engagement on the topic.
“My understanding with the movers on this is public engagement, traditional public engagement, is not being required,” Hamilton said.
“This additional time does give us time to do communication and informing Calgarians of what is coming.”
The new councillors had some questions on their first technical review of a notice of motion.
Ward 3 Coun. Andrew Yule asked if a reconsideration of the previous decision was required. That would mean a supermajority (10 councillors) would be needed for it to move ahead.
The answer was no; it doesn’t require a reconsideration.
“Because this is a bylaw, reconsiderations don’t apply,” explained city clerk Kate Martin.
“We’re not going to be following the rules within the Procedure Bylaw. When it comes to a City of Calgary bylaw, it’s the Municipal Government Act that overrides it so there is no reconsideration.”
Ward 8 Coun. Nate Schmidt asked about potential legal repercussions, wading into the language used to back up the repeal request.
“The legal considerations right now are whether council can do this, not characterizations like regressive or step back,” Mayor Jeromy Farkas intervened.
“Those are characterizations for debate. Right now, before us is just the technical merits.”
Coun. Schmidt did ask a broader question around the legality of pulling back property rights. City solicitor Jill Floen said changing the land-use bylaw was within the City of Calgary’s purview.
Mayor Farkas rounded out the questions by asking about the resources needed to undertake the work of the repeal.
“I believe, just from a resourcing perspective, this will require me to redirect staff from certain core work that we’re doing now onto this Notice of Motion and undertake this work, as well as potentially budget,” said GM Hamilton.
“There may be core work that needs to stop. There may be applications that will not get processed or will slow down in order for me to get the team working on this piece of work.”
