Calgary city councillors approved the land-use redesignation for a controversial southwest development, one that was deferred until a new city council was elected but has since been further slimmed down.

The ongoing Augusta Villas land-use redesignation on Elveden Drive SW was approved 9-5 after a substantial public hearing and debate on the mid-density development in the Springbank Hill area.

The land-use redesignation for the site was deferred to this year after residents successfully lobbied the prior Calgary city council to wait until after the October 2025 municipal election so they had a councillor representing them.

Former Ward 6 Coun. Richard Pootmans had already resigned his seat, and the ward duties had been split between three other councillors.

There had been ongoing discussions between the developer, the community, and the new councillor, Ward 6’s John Pantazopoulos.

While the area residents rejected a revised December proposal, Pantazopoulos said at that time he would work with all parties to find a resolution.

The most recent proposal dropped the number of units down to 35, however, that still wasn’t ideal for residents, who have largely remained steadfast that it should be 19 units, as per the current Springbank Hill Area Structure Plan (ASP). Though, recently, they’d been willing to accept 30 units.

“This community has been willing from day one to make compromises. You’ve heard my fellow residents say we didn’t want to go above the ASP, but we were willing to do so. We proposed a 25 per cent increase, we presented a 50 per cent increase, but those requests were not adhered to,” said area resident Sara Austin, who has been leading the advocacy against the development.

“That’s why you’re hearing today such strong opposition. We have tried time and time again to fight, to work with them, to find compromises, and they have been unwilling to make meaningful compromises on the singular issue that is most important, which is density.”

The developer had also agreed to only include single units and semi-detached homes, eliminating townhomes from the development.

Long collaboration: Coun. Pantazopoulos

Marshall Naruzny, who had, until recently, sat as the planning coordinator on the Springbank Hill Community Association. He said that the ASP had been approved back in 2017, and amendments along the way just continue to pick it apart. It’s something that he, and many others, spent three years working on.

“A year after, so 2017, 2018 amendments came in; higher, denser, different areas. So it’s like, why did we waste our time?” Naruzny said.

“(We) Went through three planners till the ASP got created, and then it’s just ignored.”

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot empathized with the work that had been done by community members over the years. He said this is a substantial change for residents who had put together a different plan less than a decade ago.

“Community associations are being tasked with doing so much work, and the fact that they went through this process recently and took three years, roughly, to do this, and that was only eight and a half years ago, and then expecting them to continue to be gatekeepers on an ongoing basis to make sure that it sort of aligns with the rest of the concepts of the plan, I think, is an unrealistic expectation,” he said.

Coun. Pantazopoulos, who was chairing the meeting due to a declared conflict of interest by Mayor Jeromy Farkas, faced considerable pressure during the meeting from participants in the public hearing. Many suggested that he’d campaigned at the doors to do things differently from a planning perspective, and that democracy should take hold, and he should represent the will of residents.

For his part, Pantazopoulos said that there was significant movement by both the community and the developer. He said this collaboration raises the expectations of how development should be done in Calgary and sets the benchmark for future engagement.

“We regularly hear from Calgarians they feel unheard and their concerns are not meaningfully addressed,” he said.  

“This project demonstrates the opposite.”

Coun. Pantazopoulos said he was satisfied that appropriate engagement and compromise had occurred during the past few months. There are still some outstanding issues, such as traffic and mobility infrastructure in the area that need attention, he noted.

“The majority of the community’s key concerns have been sufficiently addressed, and I’m confident the remaining matters can be appropriately resolved at the development permit stage,” he said.  

“I also, and more importantly, commit to remaining actively involved in this file to ensure no critical issues are missed.”