{"id":571918,"date":"2026-03-31T01:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T01:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571918\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T01:44:11","slug":"citywide-rezoning-debate-and-decision-not-likely-until-after-easter-calgary-mayor-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/571918\/","title":{"rendered":"Citywide rezoning debate and decision not likely until after Easter: Calgary mayor – Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public hearing into whether Calgary city council<\/a> should repeal citywide rezoning has entered its second week, but the city\u2019s mayor believes a debate on the matter will likely continue into next week.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s due in part to city council\u2019s schedule this week, which includes regularly-scheduled council and committee meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as a stat holiday on Good Friday.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s left just two days this week for council to complete the public hearing, ask questions of administration and then debate the policy.<\/p>\n

Alex Williams, a member of the Calgary Transit Riders advocacy group, waited six days for his turn to speak to council.<\/p>\n

Williams spoke in favour of keeping citywide rezoning as Calgary needs \u201ca lot of different options\u201d when it comes to housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cTransit-oriented development isn\u2019t going to solve all of our issues, neither is R-CG (Residential Grade-oriented Infill District),\u201d Williams told Global News.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBut we need to make use of both of these things if we want a strong, robust transit system and something that works for Calgarians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citywide rezoning saw the city\u2019s default residential zoning district changed to R-CG back in August 2024, which allowed for a variety of housing types to be developed on a single property like rowhouses and townhomes.<\/p>\n

The policy change was aimed at boosting the supply and affordability of housing in the city.<\/p>\n

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However, the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) argued Monday the policy hasn\u2019t achieved either.<\/p>\n

CREB\u2019s chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie urged city council to take time to repeal and reset the city\u2019s planning moving forward, including the use of Local Area Plans to determine where density is appropriate.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust plan out what that existing community might look like, similar to when you go into a brand new community, you know exactly what is around you,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cHow can we create that same sort of thing in existing communities?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCalgary\u2019s contentious blanket rezoning policy back before city council\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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As of Monday morning, city officials confirmed a total of 526 people had signed up to speak on whether or not council should repeal citywide rezoning.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s less than half of the more than 1,100 Calgarians who signed up to speak during the historic public hearing in April 2024, when the policy was enacted.<\/p>\n

Just 736 of that total spoke to council over 15 days, with the majority of them opposed to blanket rezoning.<\/p>\n

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Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount-Royal University, said the lower number of public speakers could be a result of city council indicating they\u2019d be in favour of repealing the policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to find, it sounds like, a more nuanced policy that allows for increasing housing without dramatically changing the character of neighbourhoods or streets,\u201d Williams told Global News.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps that has diminished some of the passion that was associated with this in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he remains \u201camenable to persuasion\u201d but hopes to begin debate this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Calgarians want to see a resolution to this thing, to get this done sooner rather than later, and I agree with them,\u201d McLean said.<\/p>\n

His comments come after a back-and-forth<\/a> on social media this weekend between Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas and Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston over Farkas\u2019 desire to wait until after Easter to begin debate.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI can tell you I have gone through the submissions and people want us to vote on this without delay,\u201d Johnston wrote in a social media post Friday.<\/p>\n

When asked about the upcoming debate Monday, Farkas said he \u201cwill not cut corners on the public hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the home stretch but we have more and more people signing up tp speak, which I think is a great thing,\u201d Farkas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that some people would like us to really get to a decision but we can\u2019t start on that until we\u2019ve heard from absolutely everyone who wants to speak.\u201d<\/p>\n

If city council approves the citywide rezoning repeal, city administration said the changes won\u2019t take effect until Aug. 4, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public hearing into whether Calgary city council should repeal citywide rezoning has entered its second week, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[213324,49,2798,71388,48,24156,190319,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-571918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-blanket-rezoning-calgary","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-calgary","11":"tag-calgary-city-council","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-city-of-calgary","14":"tag-citywide-rezoning-calgary","15":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571918","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=571918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}