During the Mayor Bronconnier era I was much less of a council observer than today. One exception was the despicable decade of nimbyism regarding secondary suites that bled into the mayor Nenshi era, the one I observed much more, even dragging on into the second Nenshi mandate. At the time the boomer heavy Council was able to defer, defray, and deny the legalization and construction of much needed basement suites. The conservative council was extremely interested in denying the rights of the individual to do as she saw fit with her property. Of course, basement suite development occurred in massive numbers, with the general public just denying the silly rules and building many of these suites in their private residences. This shadow inventory made up a significant portion of lower cost rental housing, eventually the rules were updated after much high profile and embarrasing bickering, currently secondary suites are largely a non-issue.
Next was introducing the townhouse or row house zone into the Rc2 areas, where a good set of contextual rules was drafted, each property would need a council vote to be re-designated to allow the row houses to be permitted. This remains a slow and costly process, but, with each successive council, the likelihood and predictability of success became much more certain. Some city led rezoning was done as part of main streets initiatives, and with the advent of local area planning, lumping a group of adjacent communities into a revised master plan, more policy backing was provided to rcg aspiring builders.
This incrementalism was quite successful in adding new supply, fortuitous it can be looked upon, as a lot of purpose built rental stock hit the market from 2018-2022, as a massive wave of immigration and demand for grade oriented rental housing arrived to Calgary. The consequence has also been a run up in land values, and now, with high cost of financing, a lack of land supply to be rebuilt as rcg rental stock harms supply growth today, when the need has never been greater.
With the city decrying a housing emergency, a task force was created to address the supply of affordable housing, and one of its key conclusions was to engage in a mass land use change of the base zone, largely Rc1 and Rc2, to the rowhouse/townhouse zone, Rcg. This would change, almost overnight, a large amount of the untouchable and exclusive housing stock, particularly in the Rc1 areas, to allow multi family development. Note, the Rc1 areas have the best locations, and largest lots, and the most restrictive rules, as they don’t allow any building except the much maligned McMansion. As of the special council meeting on Saturday, September 16th, 2023, the previously unthinkable actually took place, and by a vote of 12-3, the policy passed. It can now head to a future council meeting where a clear path to do the broad land use change will be executed by the city admin.
My thoughts on this include a sense of relief, that the people in charge actually show an ability to act. One of the greatest issues we have today is our slow and dim witted levels of governance, and the fecklessness shown on addressing key issues. Instead we tend to get government creating more problems, or attempting to solve make believe problems through virtue signalling. A broad based land use change would have been impossible just a few years ago. The tiny changes, allowing basement suites, to allowing some townhouses in some areas, and then all at once leaping forward to a mass land use change is a tremendous shift. It will save so much time, cost and headache for the builder, that, in combination with the new Federal ruling on gst will make development of multi family homes much more viable. This is a major benefit to society to balance supply and demand, thus mitigating future rent and home price escalation in Calgary. Those arguing against it, including the three opposing Councillors, appear as stodgy dinosaurs, relics of a boomer era of backroom planning politics, where preservation of wealth enclaves occupied by campaign donors would drive land use policy. Special mention of the Councillor who attended the full session despite being due to give birth is warranted, as she wanted to make sure her vote would count in case it was a split Council. The typical gatekeepers and their arguments appeared to fall far short of swaying Council, other than the usual suspects who have zero sophistication in land use matters and typically vote against infill development anyway. Absent a new modernized zoning bylaw, this change appears to be the biggest story in Calgary land use planning in our lifetime.