Calgary city councillors got an idea of how changes to the land-use bylaw, removing citywide rezoning and going back to the 12 land-use divisions of years gone by, will move forward in the coming weeks.
Mayor Jeromy Farkas asked the question of what’s next, during Question Period at the Dec. 16 Public Hearing Meeting of Calgary city council.
Teresa Goldstein, director of community planning for the City of Calgary, made one thing very clear from the start: the Dec. 15 decision by council did not immediately rescind citywide rezoning.
“Yesterday, council directed administration to prepare a new bylaw to reintroduce the low-density districts and bring this to public hearing in March of 2026,” she told councillors.
Goldstein told councillors that there are several important steps that council and Calgarians should be aware of in between.
First, the process to get there begins with advertising notification. According to the City of Calgary, advertising of the proposed changes will begin in February 2024, roughly three-to-four weeks ahead of the public hearing, “which is longer than required under the Municipal Government Act,” read an email response to questions from the City.
“Advertising will include mailouts to affected property owners, digital advertising and social media,” the email read.
Goldstein said that Calgarians can participate by submitting their written comments, or they can register to speak at the public hearing. The last public hearing on the topic lasted about a month and cost the City of Calgary nearly $1.3 million.
The date for the proposed March public hearing will be set in January, Goldstein said.
It will also be a standalone meeting, with no conflict from other land-use hearing items.
“Administration is working to communicate the process, both internally and externally, on calgary.ca and to work with all applicants to ensure that they understand and know the next steps for their applications,” Goldstein said.
Further, the City of Calgary said that it will begin communicating with all parties.
“Communicating with applicants typically entails directly contacting each file applicant, general FAQs and messaging online, ongoing information in regular applicant correspondence (advisories added to detailed reviews and approval letters), and support through our planning services call centre,” they said via email.
Goldstein said that if the future bylaw changes get three readings, then city administration will need time to finalize processing the current applications and implement the new changes. That’s expected to take until August 2026.
Mayor Farkas followed up with a question on what happens to development permits, building permits and subdivision applications with RCG and RG land use districts.
“Between today and when Council provides the third reading, there are no changes to any applications,” Goldstein responded.
“Administration will continue to process those after third reading. There will be a period of time where we will work with the applicants that are in mid-application, for example, and then their land use changes to make sure that the applications are treated accordingly.”
