What’s old(er) and, at the time, much maligned, is new again, like it was in the prior citywide rezoning public hearing: Local Area Plans (LAPs).

If one Calgary city councillor has his way, there will be more money to expedite the planning documents, too.

During the last two weeks of the public hearing to repeal citywide rezoning in Calgary, citizens have brought forward their ideas on either repealing, keeping, amending, or refocusing land use efforts on LAPs.

The planning documents were first delivered with the completion of the North Hill Local Area Plan back in 2021. Work on the document, however, first began in 2019, with citizen engagement.

Derision of the process, the lack of engagement, the different applications in Neighbourhood Local, Flex, etcetera, were common during the first LAPs. The North Hill Local Area Plan was even challenged in court.

Since that initial foray five years ago, Calgary has completed seven LAPs involving nearly 70 communities: East Calgary International Avenue, Chinook, Heritage, Riley, South Shaganappi, Westbrook, and West Elbow. North Hill makes it eight in total.

The City of Calgary has attempted in each iteration to improve how it engages with, receives feedback, and then shows the impact of proposed changes in the plan.

Early on in the citywide rezoning public hearing, some of the first utterances of relying on Local Area Plans emerged. Nancy Manchak, a professional engineer who relocated to Calgary with her family back in 2023, said she was disappointed in blanket rezoning, especially since she’d participated so thoughtfully in the Chinook LAP.

“With this in mind, I support the return of thoughtful, community-minded planning that aligns with Local Area Plans,” she said.

“Diversity is a strength in Calgary, yet blanket rezoning aims to use a one-size-fits-all policy approach for our future urban planning. Calgary’s public policy that aims to fit a square peg in a round hole.”

LAPs typically prescribe what kind of broad building typology can be placed in certain areas, often increasing density along major corridors or around large activity centres.

Possible changes to LAPs?

Many of the speakers who suggested LAPs as the potential panacea for citywide rezoning unrest also believed that the LAP area should be smaller. Of the current completed LAPS, there’s an average of slightly more than nine communities per plan.

The City of Calgary said that they currently group communities based on physical boundaries such as rivers, major parks and roads, plus shared amenities like local businesses, transit stations and recreation facilities.

“Local area plans (LAPs) approved to date range from including 4 to 16 communities per LAP, based on physical boundaries and shared amenities,” read an emailed city response to questions.

They did say the two most recently launched LAPs include two residential communities (South Bow Communities) and four (Carburn Communities) but that both contain large industrial areas.

“Local area plans are developed using the same general level of resources regardless of the size of the LAP. We have found that the complexity level has remained consistent within all areas planned to date,” the City of Calgary said.

However, the City also said that timelines and associated costs to complete would increase substantially if fewer communities were planned and grouped together. Currently, a plan takes up to 2.5 years to complete and requires three full-time staff, along with communications and engagement personnel.

“The currently completed eight local area plans would have taken roughly 45 years to complete if done taking a community-by-community approach or 22.5 years grouping two communities per LAP,” read the City of Calgary email.

“To develop local area plans for the remaining 84 established area communities taking a community-by-community approach, it would take almost 50 years to complete. The currently completed eight local area plans took 8 years to complete.”

More resources to fast-track LAPs

Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said that he heard loud and clear from his area residents that density is OK, but that they want more say in how that’s done. A citywide approach just doesn’t work for them, he said.

“Their biggest issue is with the blanket part of the blanket rezoning. Almost every single person, even the most strident folks who are saying we would need to repeal it, are saying we do want more density in our neighbourhood. We just want it in the right place,” Kelly said.

“The best tool that the City of Calgary has in order to be able to do that is a local area plan. That is what it’s for. That is the reason why we have it.”

With that in mind, Kelly said he’d be bringing forth a Notice of Motion, likely to the next Executive Committee meeting, that would seek more resources for the City of Calgary’s planning and development unit to expedite the remaining 42 Local Area Plans.

“That is what people are looking for, is to be able to have a conversation about where development should happen in their neighbourhood. The local area plan is the way to do it,” he said.

“As a result, we need some more resources to be able to do more Local Area Plans so that our neighbours can have a say in terms of how their neighbourhood grows.”

Other councillors are also in favour focusing on LAPs to help assuage redevelopment concerns among Calgarians.

“I’m a big fan of Local Area Plans and sticking to it and having those as a solid foundation for how neighbourhoods are designed, but they have to be designed by the people that live in those neighbourhoods,” said Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston.

“Those Local Area Plans have to be like-minded for each neighbourhood that’s included in it, and if we have to fast-track that, then that’s what we have to do.”

Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson said that these conversations – repeal and LAPs – should be separated. He said one is about the base-level district and the rules governing it, and the other is a conversation around where in a community density should be.

“Reading sometimes through the Local Area Plans doesn’t always map to people’s understanding of land use districts, but also land use districts are also complex and get into nitty-gritties,” he said.

 “That’s the problem is we have very complicated rule sets that are applied with the zoning and LAPs are trying to be this bridge between those complexities and community understanding of what is going to be built and what their neighbourhood will look like.”

“That also then requires you bring community up to the level of understanding of what all the details around every single land use zone mean.”