{"id":603564,"date":"2026-04-14T14:34:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:34:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/603564\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T14:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T14:34:13","slug":"calgary-housing-advocates-call-on-city-council-to-replace-citywide-rezoning-with-new-plan-calgary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/603564\/","title":{"rendered":"Calgary housing advocates call on city council to replace citywide rezoning with new plan – Calgary"},"content":{"rendered":"

A coalition of local organizations and housing advocates has issued a call to Calgary city council<\/a> to find a replacement plan to deliver housing after the repeal of citywide rezoning.<\/p>\n

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The call came at a press conference outside city hall Monday with dozens of supporters of citywide rezoning across several organizations, including More Neighbours Calgary, Good Neighbour, Calgary Transit Riders, the University of Calgary Students\u2019 Union and the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people working full time who cannot find a home,\u201d More Neighbours co-founder Willem Klumpenhouwer said. \u201cRepeal without replacement doesn\u2019t pause that crisis, it makes it worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, council voted 12-3 in favour of repealing citywide rezoning after eight days of public hearings that saw more than 400 people address councillors on the issue.<\/p>\n

The move will see 306,774 residential properties across the city redesignated back to their original low-density residential districts.<\/p>\n

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The policy, which took effect in August 2024 after being approved by the previous city council, changed the city\u2019s base residential zoning to allow for more housing types on a single property, like duplexes, rowhomes and townhouses, without requiring a public hearing.<\/p>\n

Citywide rezoning was one of 98 recommendations included in Home is Here, the city\u2019s strategy to boost housing supply and affordability, amid concerns about impacts on community character, a lack of public input into redevelopment and increased density.<\/p>\n

The coalition, however, said repeal will result in more expensive housing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWithout a solid plan to replace, development will regress and stagnate. Gains on supply and affordability will be lost,\u201d Rev. Kersi Bird with the Calgary Alliance for Common Good said. \u201cThe issues at hand are not just about what communities look like, or how much parking is available, it\u2019s about everybody having a place; about security, and dignity, and seeing a future in this city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The groups are accusing Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas of not keeping a campaign commitment to repeal and replace citywide rezoning with a new plan to entice densification and build more housing.<\/p>\n

Klumpenhouwer said Farkas has broken his commitment to \u201cgentle density\u201d across the city during last fall\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

\u201cSix months of silence is not a strategy, it\u2019s not leadership,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cWe need a timeline, we need a compromise, and we need it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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In response to the coalition\u2019s calls, Farkas said council is committed to \u201cdecisive action\u201d to address housing issues, but not just with zoning policy.<\/p>\n

He pointed to council\u2019s financial support of the chief housing office, as well as partnerships with non-profit housing providers, and efforts to make land available for subsidized housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have zero interest with replacing blanket rezoning with a new blanket rezoning,\u201d Farkas told reporters. \u201cI want to work legitimately with the community to be able to get this right, take the input that Calgarians are providing us, build the public will, and then deliver the housing Calgarians need.\u201d<\/p>\n

The repeal of citywide rezoning will take effect in August, but local developers told Global News the effects are already being felt in the industry.<\/p>\n

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Shameer Gaidhar with the Calgary Inner City Builders Association (CICBA) said developers will be limited to single-detached or semi-detached redevelopment in established neighbourhoods without requiring a zoning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen our members go out and build houses, they build two types of houses: a paper house and a brick-and-mortar house. The paper house can take up to seven months to develop, and the brick-and-mortar house can take another seven months,\u201d Gaidhar said. \u201cThe chances of you getting a development permit by August is really slim so a lot of people said, \u2018Nope, we\u2019re waiting until a replacement plan comes down.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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According to Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly, who voted in favour of repealing citywide rezoning, a replacement plan could take up to 18 months to complete following an overhaul to the city\u2019s development plan as well as the zoning bylaw.<\/p>\n

Kelly said he plans to bring forward a motion to boost the use of local area plans<\/a> to help guide redevelopment in established communities as part of a replacement strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to get to work on increasing the amount of local area planning that we\u2019re doing as a city in order to be able to codify exactly where that density belongs in our neighbourhoods,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n

City councils have approved eight local area plans so far, with another three currently under development; the city\u2019s goal is to complete 42 plans across the city.<\/p>\n

According to Kelly, there are 25,000 fewer people living in Ward 4 since its historical population peak, and housing advocates are \u201cnot wrong\u201d in their calls for a replacement to citywide rezoning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to bring more people back into the community in order to keep our schools open, in order to provide reliable transit. Those are things you need a population density to be able to do,\u201d Kelly told reporters. \u201cThey\u2019re definitely right in terms of this can\u2019t be the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A coalition of local organizations and housing advocates has issued a call to Calgary city council to find…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[213324,49,2798,71388,48,24156,46,109504,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-603564","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-economy","15":"tag-jeromy-farkas","16":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603564","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=603564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}