Calgary’s rezoning repeal public hearing is now complete, after two weeks of speakers on the contentious city planning issue.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas closed the public hearing shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 7, with 411 speakers presenting, 554 having signed up to speak, and 3,293 written submissions received and distributed.

In comparison, the 2024 Calgary rezoning public hearing had roughly 1,100 people registered and 736 who spoke. There were more than 6,100 written submissions during the initial public hearing two years ago.

Mayor Farkas said that coming off an Easter weekend, he figured more people would sign up to speak – and they did; however, the speakers didn’t materialize. He called it a bit anti-climactic.

“That said, we spoke to upwards of 400 Calgarians over the process, and this is direct democracy in action,” he said.

“It’s amazing to hear from so many Calgarians who had a lot of ideas for how we can improve housing affordability here in Calgary.”

For him, the biggest question he saw from citizens isn’t necessarily whether Calgary builds for the future growth, it’s how the city builds.

There was a vote just before councillors recessed in advance of questions of administration on whether there should have been a recess at all.

Mayor Farkas said he felt a break was necessary to review the 100 or more pieces of correspondence that had come in over the weekend. He said that he, like others, may have been spending time with family for the holiday.

Ward 1 Coun. Kim Tyers said they’ve already spent a lot of time on rezoning, and given that most councillors know what’s coming next, even more time wasn’t necessary.

“To give more time to think and to plan and to strategize, to me, I’m like, I really don’t see the necessity in that, especially since we gave extra time over the weekend until Tuesday so that we could reconvene and…  just be ready to go. So, I was disappointed in that,” she said.

Immovable objects?

Tyers said that she was still going to fight for a full repeal of citywide rezoning, as she had stated during her fall 2025 municipal election campaign, and based on what she’d heard in the hearing. With that said, she admittedly heard there are potential situations where some Calgarians could fall through the cracks.

“I remember there was one presentation where he said, ‘Don’t let people become casualties.’ That really hit home for me,” Tyers said.  

“I want to make sure that as we’re doing this, that we really are thoughtful about it, and that we understand what the repercussions are.”

Ward 8 Coun. Nathan Schmidt said what spoke to him was the ground-level impact that citywide rezoning has had on certain Calgary communities. It was particularly evident around the expectations of what a development would look and feel like that wasn’t being met.

“Something else that came up a lot was that what we were discussing wasn’t necessarily relevant to what was before us when it came to things like tree canopy, lot sizes, parcel coverage, parking,” he said.

“All those types of issues are parallel to what’s been happening here and really tell me that there’s other parts to this that need to be fixed, regardless of how we vote on (rezoning).”

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said he was surprised at how balanced the public hearing was, though he admitted it was clear the repeal side was in the majority.

“I mean, clearly the repeal blanket rezoning side is the majority, but not as overwhelming as what we thought it would be from the emails that we’ve received and from the written public submissions,” he said.

Kelly said that he believes the city’s Local Area Plan process is the best mechanism to move community planning forward.

Ward 6 Coun. John Pantazopoulos agreed said he more could be done to advance LAPs, or the application of those principles.

“I think I heard a general consensus being that, look, density is not the problem,” he said.

“It’s not incorporating the needs of the community. It’s not incorporating what exactly community wants.”

Pantazopoulos said he thinks more data is needed to help inform local area plans, the Calgary Plan, or the Land-Use Bylaw update that’s supposed to be coming to Calgary city council. He plans motions arising to address the data gap.

Calgary city councillors will have a little less than 24 hours to refine their questions to administration or prepare potential amendments or motions arising, as the meeting will continue April 8 at 9:30 a.m.