Calgary city councillors didn’t appear fazed by a slight regression in the progress of the city’s Home is Here strategy, with it still creating tens of thousands of homes.
Councillors got an update on the Home is Here Strategy during the May 6 meeting of the Community Development Committee, and overall, the document showed that Calgary led all Canadian municipalities in housing starts.
More than 27,000 new homes were granted occupancy in 2025, which is more than double the 10-year annual average of 13,000. There were 1,800 non-market homes that received development permits in 2025, which is five times the typical volume, according to the admin report.
Calgary is also moving closer to the 50/50 split between growth in new communities and existing communities, hitting 57 per cent in new communities and 43 per cent in established areas. That’s changed from 73 per cent in new communities in 2024.
Calgary’s Chief Housing Officer, Reid Hendry, said that while progress is being made in some areas, there are still housing pressures in Calgary.
“Since 2019, home prices and rents have increased by more than 40 per cent while incomes have grown by only 12 per cent over the same period,” Hendry told councillors.
“This dynamic is driving affordability pressures, particularly for households already at risk of housing instability and is increasingly affecting middle income households as well.”
Hendry also noted that recent Calgary citizen survey results show the vast majority (92 per cent) of Calgarians believe that market homes are too expensive, and 86 per cent said more should be invested in affordable housing for low-income Calgarians.
“Keeping the macroeconomic pressures in mind, these survey results are unfortunately not surprising,” he said.
“Demand, cost escalation, population growth, they all continue to outpace incomes, reinforcing the need for sustained, coordinated action across market and non-market housing.”
Operational delays, repeal of rezoning slow strategy progress
While there’s significant progress in some areas, specifically around the overall 98 recommendations (71 per cent complete or in progress), the repeal of rezoning and delays on some projects has set the entire plan back.
According to the report, 19 per cent of actions were planned to start in 2025 but didn’t due to funding issues or reprioritization. Nine per cent of actions that were previously reported as progressing as planned or complete changed, with rezoning dropping progress by seven per cent and other operational delays accounting for two per cent regression.
Ward 8 Coun. Nathan Schmidt said that housing is something that needs to be measured over the course of several years, not just year to year.
“With affordable housing, for example, the city, we try to be the first one in the door, but a lot of those projects can’t get done without help from provincial and federal governments, because they also have a responsibility for housing,” he said.
“So, I think a lot of the lulls and the peaks and valleys come with the funding cycles that unfortunately are not always aligned with our own strategic cycles.”
Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson, who moved the approval of the update, said you can’t ignore that creating non-market housing at a report-referenced, one-time cost of $63,000 is better than paying $93,000 annually in associated costs related to dealing with homeless Calgarians.
“When it comes to housing, the operational costs are so expensive and are bleeding our city dry,” he said.
“So, this is just a financially sound decision to pursue better housing, and then we get all the benefits of making someone have a clean, safe bed to lie on and a roof over their heads. It’s a win all across the board.”
