voted in favour of a motion<\/a> to kick-start the process to scrap it back in December.<\/p>\nThat motion directed city administration to reset the city\u2019s land-use bylaw to what was in place prior to the previous city council approving citywide rezoning, but would exempt properties that had development permits approved or any currently under review in the permit process.<\/p>\n
According to city data, the move would re-designate 306,774 residential properties back to their original \u201clow density residential districts,\u201d which would only allow for a single-detached home plus one suite on 68 per cent of residential parcels in Calgary.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI would really love to see councillors really think twice about repealing this policy,\u201d said Kathryn Davies, co-founder of pro-housing group More Neighbours Calgary.<\/p>\n
\u201cEdmonton is about a year ahead on this zoning journey and they\u2019re starting to see effects of it, they\u2019re starting to see rents come down, they\u2019re starting to see increased tax revenue from communities where these types of developments are being built.\u201d<\/p>\n
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City data shows citywide rezoning enabled 1,655 units in 2025, which made up 63 per cent of units through low density development permits, but 4,500 units have been enabled since the policy took effect in August 2024.<\/p>\n
Opponents of the policy argue the housing developed through the policy isn\u2019t affordable, and the increase in rowhomes and townhomes has created issues within inner-city communities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to reset to where we were before,\u201d said Scott Rusty Miller with Calgarians for Thoughtful Growth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to use that as a base to re-engage with neighbourhoods and come up with a plan that will allow for appropriate and non-destructive densification.\u201d<\/p>\n
The policy changed Calgary\u2019s land-use bylaw to make residential grade-oriented infill (R-CG) the default residential zoning district across the city, which allows for more housing types, including single-detached, semi-detached, duplexes and rowhouses on a single property.<\/p>\n
The previous city council approved the plan after the longest public hearing in city history that saw the majority of the more than 730 speakers in opposition to the idea.<\/p>\n
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\u201cPeople were invited to participate but they had no influence,\u201d Miller told Global News. \u201cI\u2019m hopeful that will change for this hearing, I\u2019m hopeful council will truly listen to what people had to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
Repealing citywide rezoning became a key platform piece for several city councillors elected last fall, including Ward 6 Coun. John Pantazopoulos.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe knocked on 55,000 doors and we heard overwhelmingly that blanket rezoning didn\u2019t work and I\u2019m looking forward to hearing what people have to say,\u201d he told reporters Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think what we had before didn\u2019t work, and what we have today isn\u2019t working\u2026 whatever happens, we need to make a change to our process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he wants to \u201cthink a step further\u201d heading into Monday\u2019s public hearing, after running on a platform to replace citywide rezoning with another plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be a replacement strategy; we need an idea about how we can continue to build the needed housing,\u201d Farkas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s very much about what this public hearing is about. It\u2019s not so much blanket rezoning, yes or no, it\u2019s more than continuous debate over change, community character.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the public hearing includes<\/a> a number of proposed changes to the R-CG zoning district, including reduced height and lot coverage, a plan to replace citywide rezoning won\u2019t be part of the discussion.<\/p>\nStory continues below advertisement<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s before us right now is not what better looks like. I\u2019m deeply disappointed about that but that is where we are right now,\u201d Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s before us right now is returning back to the 2024 zoning.\u00a0 Once that\u2019s complete and council has made a decision to either do that or not, then we can actually begin the conversation about what is better and what does better look like.\u201d<\/p>\n
The public hearing begins Monday at 9:30 a.m., and the public can register in-person or online if they wish to speak.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hundreds of Calgarians are preparing to, once again, have their say on citywide rezoning at a public hearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[213324,49,2798,71388,48,24156,190319],"class_list":["post-548014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-blanket-rezoning-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-calgary-city-council","tag-canada","tag-city-of-calgary","tag-citywide-rezoning-calgary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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