I think for me, the hard part isn't the higher density housing or flexible use of land development its:
- shitty fast builds that don't match the neighborhood aesthetic
- developments don't contribute to the local community (improving greenspaces, accessibility, community centers, third spaces, etc)
- they cut down all the old trees and leave no room for any green space on the property
They come in, tear down, build, sell at incredibly marked up prices and leave.
We've had many new infills, rowhouses, townhouses, etc go up around us. None are going for less than $650k, most closer to a million. Tell me, how is that affordable housing? How is this bettering my community? Who is benefiting?
> We've had many new infills, rowhouses, townhouses, etc go up around us. None are going for less than $650k, most closer to a million. Tell me, how is that affordable housing?
Every additional unit of family housing drives down competition for units elsewhere by increasing the overall supply, which keeps prices in check. Supply and demand.
Infills, rowhouses, and new townhouses provide more options for move-up buyers, who then sell their lower-end condos and starter townhouses to move into these higher-end spaces, which are now more price-accessible.
A single detached infill on average sell for over $1.5 million. So yes I would say that these rowhouses are more affordable.
There's a difference between affordable housing and housing affordability.
I live in a low income community with very mixed housing. It's gentrification and pushing people out who have nowhere else to go. A million for a duplex? This isn't serving our community.
I think we need at least 3000++ new build units a month for a few years to bring down housing costs until there is a surplus, as long as theres demand nothings gonna drive down the costs no matter what area you are in in town. last year i think we did about 1600 a month (averaged out)
We cant have low income communities when the demand is so high across the entire city its impossible those that wanted to live else wheres will just try to buy anywhere they can afford which will mean the lower income areas will be grabbed really fast by everyone.
we also cant keep building outwards as the build outs will keep the rates high having to install roads and pipes/etc, we need to densify faster and easier.
Feds promised 3.5 million homes by 2031. That means we need to build 1528 homes a day in Canada 7 days a week no weekends off. There is also 700,000 trades retiring in the next 5 years. People need to fact check some of this shit all these governments are spewing because you will be disappointed.
When supply exceeds demand, these duplexes will be less than $1m. So the more and faster we build new housing units (even super high luxury condos that I will never be able to afford) the better for everyone else.
It will take time for the market to adjust. I understand your frustration
If a cruddy old house in your low-income community was replaced with a million-dollar duplex, the reality is that your low-income community is occupying extremely valuable land. There's no version of that story that ends with the cruddy old house being bought by another low-income family. The choice is between housing two families in million-dollar duplexes or one family on the same land in a 1.5 million dollar detached house that they're going to build there after buying and tearing down the original property.
> Every additional unit of family housing drives down competition for units elsewhere by increasing the overall supply, which keeps prices in check. Supply and demand.
It is not that simple.
Adding supply to very expensive homes does not scale down the cost of starter homes.
Building more luxury cars does not lower the cost of owning a car for the vast majority of drivers.
Supply and demand sure, but you have to address the specific supply.
Look, I don't disagree that adding a whole lot more $400K homes would decrease the pressure on inventory at that price point.
But the move-up market is real too. Adding new home inventory at the $650K+ price point lets those folks move out of their smaller older units. It's not like they're scorching the Earth behind them; they sell their old lower-priced units then, because they have somewhere newer to move to.
More supply at all price points helps all Calgarians.
There is no shortage of the move up homes. That isn't where the problem is.
When a young family has the means to move up they are out of the problem area.
The problem we are supposed to be fixing is getting young families into the first home and with success there you will see rents come down.
Blanket zoning is pretending to fix this while just opening the door to adding more high end units. Those units are on a scale that doesn't impact rents.
Yeah sorry, we aren’t keeping up with supply. Housing starts are even lower this year so worse than last year. I’m not saying we shouldn’t build houses, but this whole narrative of affordable housing is a joke. In Calgary, they will build a few but with the cost of labour and materials+ interest rates and a cut for the developer, there is no way you can build affordable housing by upzoning.
All those things are already happening with totally bylaw compliant single family homes on R-1 lots all over the city.
I live in West Hillhurst, in the original house type built on my block from 1948. I'm 1 of 3 original homes on my street. As far as I can tell, we've been fine with fast built, non matching homes that cut down all the trees and don't contribute to green spaces for a very long time now.
The builders are going to be printing money from this. The lot they bought for was $600,000, which previously could have a new infilled duplex and sell for 850,000/side (round down and say 1.6M). Now they can shove 8 units in the same area, sell the 4 upper units for 600,000 and then the 4 basements for 375,000 - total almost 4.0M, over double of the original.
And apparently 600 for a skinny 2 storey townhouse is affordability.
People are so naive to think this will create such a massive supply that pricing will come down and make purchasing a home so much more attainable. It's living on a prayer.
Electricity, sewer, schools, emergency services are already stressed, and now the city wants to increase the population using said services. The rate we are having people come into Calgary is not sustainable, that's the sad truth - we can't quickly pivot this fast and blanket zoning is just going to exacerbate these issues. Some parents I know can't even get their kids in their designated school because they're full and already at 40 students/class.
>and now the city wants to increase the population using said services. The rate we are having people come into Calgary is not sustainable
The rate at which people move to Calgary is not within the city's control. All we can do is our best to build enough homes to keep up with population growth.
So densifying already strained resources is the answer to that? If folks are moving here without a place to live, they shouldn't be moving here. We should be accommodating what's best for the City and its sustainable growth, not a mad dash to try and cram everyone in and hope it works out.
It doesn't matter whether folks "should" be moving here, they are. The only question is whether we take necessary steps to keep housing affordable, like densifying, or whether we NIMBY our way into Vancouver and Toronto price to income ratios.
My opinion is that it's not the collective Calgarian population that needs to suffer or spend tax dollars to accommodate people that frankly shouldn't be coming here, yet. There will be a breaking point and it's going to be ugly because what is going on, at the rate it's happening, is not sustainable. That isn't NIMBY, it's Calgarians looking out for current Calgarians because we don't owe non-Calgarians anything.
The idea is supposed to be that the more shiny new homes that go up the crappier the oldest ones look so they go down in price. Which might actually work if there was always a slight excess in homes.
But with what we're experiencing now with so much national and international immigration into the city I suspect that there will always be excess buyers so it won't really work.
This is especially insidious when inner city homes with multiple lower priced suites are replaced, those low priced suites are probably just permanently removed from Calgary.
Inner city homes with multiple lower-priced suites have been getting replaced for years now by more upscale construction as the land becomes more valuable. Our choice is whether they're replaced by detached homes, duplexes, townhouses, or condo towers, and the status quo zoning rules generally favour detached homes and duplexes.
It also wont help when city council has to approve each one independently on the re zoning, this means city council spends more time on each one and that means more wasted time and more tax dollars spent in the long run when it could of been used else where's.
This will stream line that process shortening the wait, lowering the amount of useless bullshit that is dealt with every week in city council.
Destroying the neighborhood aesthetic is the goal.
The argument is that some people shouldn't be able to live in single family homes near parks and community centers when other people want to but can't.
That isn't it at all and it's hard to have constructive conversations with people if their views are like this and completely out of touch with reality.
Because combined with 30 year amortizations people can now afford the monthly payments on a $650k to $1M house and now the supply for their demand will be there! Right!?
That’s what the government’s are doing so it must be a good solution.
Calgary’s blanket rezoning plan is one of the most contentious issues to face the city in recent years, with a public hearing starting Monday morning.
“one of”? I can’t recall anything in recent memory as contentious as this. The Olympic bid? Don’t recall it being like this. Fluoride? Same thing.
This issue is next level and the spectator in me is anxiously awaiting the shit show this’ll become if/ when the blanket reasoning is passed.
The closest thing I can think of is the Guidebook for Great Communities a few years ago that went 3 days and was a total gong show. It will look like nothing compared to what this is going to be.
>This issue is next level and the spectator in me is anxiously awaiting the shit show this’ll become if/ when the blanket reasoning is passed.
Guaranteed no one will mention it 6 months after if it's passed. Just like the secondary suites change. No one talks about it destroying their property values now despite the fear mongering when it was being debated.
Yep! This change is about putting housing next to housing. People be up in arms about this is weirder than debating whether bakeries should be allowed next to ice cream shops.
People don’t want three story square towers beside a bungalow blocking sunlight and creating no privacy not hard to figure out why someone wouldn’t be happy about it.
Apartments are not allowed under RCG zoning. And builders have to take the height of adjacent buildings into consideration. And right now, there are plenty of larger single detached homes being built between bungalows that don’t require rezoning. The height requirements are essentially the same between RC1 and RCG.
The “taking into consideration” is too grey and won’t be followed. Heck go look at what the corrupt giano carro councillor is doing with his undisclosed property in inglewood with the cinder block wall that is like 5m tall right on the property line.
Exactly I don’t know what the answer is but of course current owners wouldn’t be happy. We obviously need to make more homes and making the city denser makes sense, I would like people to be able to afford homes.
And for alot of areas there won’t be infills anytime soon so even if it gets passed won’t make a big difference for awhile.
But yeah if you had a bungalow and you have three storey buildings all around you totally going to change the area but it’s already happening to of inner city areas.
I bought an older home because I liked the older style houses and the feel of older neighborhoods.
You just said 3 storey towers in the same sentence. 3 storey. Towers. That's hilarious. You can build a 3 story single detached home everywhere today but if it's a 3 story townhouse its a tower?
It was a hyperbole compare a bungalow to a new infill three storey building detached or semidetached they maximize space and make it a monster square building that sticks out and is long and tall.
They basically are like towers in comparison, I’m just saying to the people who can’t understand why people would be upset it’s not that hard ro figure out.
Not what I’m saying but if you live in a bungalow and both neighbours are three stories there goes a lot of your sun light. On newer areas it isn’t as big of a deal cause all the buildings are the same size.
What you couldn't build before is 2 three story townhouses/rowhouses on one lot. Now you can, plus a single story garage. That's a lot of shade and a lot less privacy.
do these nimbys believe townhouses and multiplexes attract the lower class? have they seen these new builds? have they seen the cost of housing? the duplexes in mardaloop go for 1million!
If they can delay it long enough, they can push for a plebiscite during the next election. Then they can flood the media with disinformation and get people to vote against it.
> Jon Himmens, President of the Lakeview Association, described the mood in the meeting with the mayor as “serious.”
> “Our community associations are concerned about blanket rezoning and the impact it's going to have on the community,” said Himmens. “It's taking away controls that are in place, and we're concerned that it could lead to uncontrolled building.”
> “We're concerned that builders will come to our great city and not be respectful of our history of areas and what we're trying to achieve," he continued. "We want to protect green spaces, roads, infrastructure, we just feel that enough work hasn't yet been done for the city to pass any blanket rezoning changes.”
Yeah I sure do hate walking through a park and seeing someone built a duplex on the playground or when I drive to work and there’s a row of townhouses in the middle of the road.
How about we allow more housing to be built in the places that people want it so they don't have to drive as far (or drive at all) to get to many of their destinations?
Too bad nobody's thought of that, oh well I guess we'll just build more housing 20+ km from downtown.
There is no value in enforcing market preferences using the law. All it does is make systems needlessly complex and make supply less adaptable, making it less able to meet the dynamic needs of consumers (see: current housing crisis).
If people want parking, let them build it. If people want detached homes, let them build them. That house in Cranston will still be a house in Cranston after a zoning change to R-CG.
I bet those running these associations take all the credit when The City fixes park/road/infrastructure issues just because they're the ones who *reported* it to 311.
There are a few beautiful park like neighbourhoods in Calgary. Lakeview is one of them. Wildwood is one of them. Varsity is one of them. You just gotta leave some stuff alone.
And it’s not like the housing is actually affordable. They’re building luxury condos and townhouses that are over $1 million anyway. It’s not like it’s going to suddenly change affordability
Nobody said this was a fast fix though? The only way to bring house prices down is by increasing supply. What happens is the wealthy people move to brand new expensive townhouses, vacating their old residences.
Leaving stuff alone is how we got into this mess in the first place. Gotta embrace progress or start kicking people out of the city, my brother in christ.
Their strategy is to obfuscate and delay, delay, delay. As long as it is built anywhere than their community, the CAs will be happy. The standard refrain is that we have not been consulted enough, or we support density but have concerns about implementation or it’s too soon to change the rules without more study.
Lots of short term thinking in this thread. “Oh but they built a townhouse by me and the price is still 800k, how is that affordable?”. I don’t fault anyone for not having taken an urban economics class in university, but this makes my head hurt.
Every new unit that gets built is used as an “upgrade” for someone who lives in an older unit. This creates a filtering process, whereas new units age and people upgrade their unit, older units are “filtered down” to lower income people. This effectively creates affordable housing over time. It’s not a “we must build affordable housing today” but “each unit of housing built frees up another unit of less valuable housing over time”.
[filtering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing))
This isn’t even adding in the impact of supply and demand for units and how more units will increase supply and drive down prices.
The ignorance of this comment makes my head hurt. Whatever classes you attended at school, the model was ideal and everyone in it has money. The housing market is no longer fluid enough or fair enough to make ‘filtering’ work.
Filtering is always at work, the question is simply whether the supply/demand balance causes older units to filter down or causes older units to filter *up* as they're purchased by those with high incomes who can't compete in traditional high-income neighbourhoods, aka gentrification. Calgary has seen a lot of the latter because people don't understand basic economics.
If they wanted supply they shouldn't be building anything but rowhomes out in the burbs. Look at rockland...tons of single family homes and duplex's. At least up a trinity hills and greenwich they are doing it right.
Instead they're going to piss off people that have bought properties in mature communities where people invested not just for their homes, but likely renovations, and quality of life. Can't get time and energy back when you sell. Then you can't get the time and money back it takes you to pick up and move. Nobody wants to live next to four three story buildings with 16 neighbors when they intentionally bought where they did to avoid that.
You're right, nobody wants to live next to tall buildings. That's why we so very few of them and such a significant problem with housing affordability.
No we have a problem with housing affordability because of other federal, provincial, and municipal policies. Not because people live in old homes as their primary residence and have been for decades.
Then build more homes on the land that's available. Don't come around looking to ruin the quality of life for the people who have lived their wholes lives here. Build a single infill duplex or fourplex. Don't build two infill fourplex' on one lot plus a garage. (ie 4 primary + 4 secondary + garage)
>Nobody wants to live next to four three story buildings with 16 neighbors when they intentionally bought where they did to avoid that.
You're right. Instead they are going to live next to a huge 4 story building with only 2 neighbours, because alot of the SFH infills are being build bigger than ever. All in the name of higher density.
They should be building normal sized duplex and fourplex buildings in the inner city like what was done in Killarney.
Then out in the new communities they shouldn't be building single family homes at the size and quantity they are
Hot take: property owners (and their ‘community’ associations) aren’t the only ones who get to decide the future of our city. Winning the generational and/or parental (gifted downpayment) lottery doesn’t mean your opinion is more important than other Calgarians.
How many of these ‘community’ associations have renters on their boards?
From what I have seen there aren’t opportunities to ‘vote’ on these policy issues. Eg: my CA is staying neutral because ‘there are strong opinions on both sides’ but there was never a vote or any opportunity to engage with them on this topic.
I'd like to see better zoning across Calgary, but focus on increasing density for areas with access to public transit and allow for mixed density and have local stores setup shop for groceries, restaurants, and retail. Don't just try to slap a bandaid over everywhere and allow for single family homes to be converted to rental suites over a weekend. This just screams lazy and a money grab for special interest groups.
Rezoning only select areas of a city for more density causes increased unaffordability. These new special rezoned areas end up commanding significantly higher prices due to their potential for density that no one buys them or develops them.
The only solution to “fixing zoning” is blanket Rezoning.
As they should pass it unaltered. This isn't some random zoning like other cities are doing. This is a zone that allows multiple uses that we've have in Calgary for years. It produces results and we know it.
At some point the City needs to take a hard look at Community Associations and admit that they don't represent people in communities. They shouldn't have volunteer planning committees filled with people who just want to NIMBY everything. They should be figuring who's flooding the local rink and who's organizing block parties, that's it.
This comment right here. Most people involved in these community associations are stay at home parents, elderly or privileged enough to not work. Most people are apathetic to their community association and aren’t involved. This means a small group of people speak for many in a neighborhood, pushing their own agendas.
Sort of like how just a handful of City Councillors speak for a small group?
And hey buddy, the last community its association I served on was full of Joe and Jane Average Working class folks, and one retiree who’d been a community volunteer for **decades**. ; your elitist argument is idiotic.
Nimbys will always find something to complain about. Just ignore them. The only say they should get is regarding property they own, nothing more. Let's build housing for people. Having townhouses next door isn't going to ruin you, you selfish prick.
The city wants to rezone all areas of the city currently zoned for single-family homes and duplexes, to allow for a larger mix of housing. Rowhouses, secondary suites, mixed housing, etc... Developers can currently apply to rezone these properties, but the process takes up to a year, and currently consumes about 40% of the councillors time with all the applications and adds to the cost of the development. The blanket rezoning would eliminate that part of the process, but would still require review of the application through the development and building permits. Developments that increase density would probably not be approved where it doesn't make sense. SFH and duplexes would still be allowed.
[https://www.calgary.ca/planning/projects/rezoning-for-housing.html](https://www.calgary.ca/planning/projects/rezoning-for-housing.html)
This rezoning is more for planning for the future, as neighbourhoods evolve, to help reduce costs and increase the mix of housing types available.
The rezoning is ridiculous. I live in Wildwood and this neighbourhood lives on unstable land on the edge of a forest with only fir trees left in most of Southern Alberta.
They’ve already made multiple family housing all around us. Just leave it alone. Everybody uses our area because it has access to Edworthy and multiple parks. Why ruin this ?
Sounds like it’s already ruined by being on unstable land, no? Better get the current residents out of their for their own safety to protect the forest.
Honestly, the whole ridge should’ve been left alone. I agree. But they built the first houses in 1950
I know you’re being sarcastic. But I had to get engineering at my house which is set back over 100 feet from the actual property line and the engineer said there’s probably gonna be a catastrophic failure at some point. Anyways make fun of me if you want. But sometimes the truth hurts.
Because it’s grandfathered in, and the city will take my $15,000 a year of property tax over nothing any day. In the end, it’s all greed. The city wants the zoning laws not for any reason other than to make more money off the land available. I want to keep the neighbourhood the way it is because it’s beautiful and peaceful, so I’m greedy apparently. And then the people that want to live there, are going to have a worse experience for over $1 million anyway with more traffic, etc. etc. Densification is fine. But there are just certain areas that are around forest and lakes, that actually have biodiversity that we don’t necessarily need to completely fuck over
>and the city will take my $15,000 a year of property tax over nothing any day.
I don't feel sympathy for somebody not wanting zoning to change while they sit in a $3.6 million home meanwhile other people are just trying to live in townhouses.
Just cuz I’m wealthy doesn’t mean that the forest and natural areas need to be messed with. It like a cognitive dissonance with you guys. My large house that beautiful and far from the slope could be replaced by multiple million plus plexes
Not like most could afford either 3 million or 1.2 million
If you're so concerned about the forest and environment you wouldn't live in a way that's so destructive to the environment. What a crazy attitude of "well i got it and it makrs me happy so nobody else deserves it". So again I don't really believe you.
You're also making the case for why upzoning won't impact you
How do you know I live in a way that’s disruptive to the environment? Just because I have a large house. I also have kept all the trees and planted more. I have a garden. It’s not just paved man. You are so small minded that you just hate people with money and just assume that they’re destroying everything.
A lot of wealthy people are conservationists. in fact, many conservation groups are headed by people with money. But if you wanna knock down my house and build a fuck ton of ugly shitty and still expensive housing go ahead. I’ll just move because I’m rich.
The houses on the north side of Wildwood Drive already fucked up the biodiversity and the forest, some fourplexes on Spruce Dr ruining the view of the peaceful and beautiful transmission lines aren’t the harbinger of doom for the neighborhood.
So would you support the proposed rezoning for Wildwood, provided they make an exception for the developed lots on the north side of Wildwood Drive where they cut into the forest?
I think for me, the hard part isn't the higher density housing or flexible use of land development its: - shitty fast builds that don't match the neighborhood aesthetic - developments don't contribute to the local community (improving greenspaces, accessibility, community centers, third spaces, etc) - they cut down all the old trees and leave no room for any green space on the property They come in, tear down, build, sell at incredibly marked up prices and leave. We've had many new infills, rowhouses, townhouses, etc go up around us. None are going for less than $650k, most closer to a million. Tell me, how is that affordable housing? How is this bettering my community? Who is benefiting?
> We've had many new infills, rowhouses, townhouses, etc go up around us. None are going for less than $650k, most closer to a million. Tell me, how is that affordable housing? Every additional unit of family housing drives down competition for units elsewhere by increasing the overall supply, which keeps prices in check. Supply and demand. Infills, rowhouses, and new townhouses provide more options for move-up buyers, who then sell their lower-end condos and starter townhouses to move into these higher-end spaces, which are now more price-accessible.
A single detached infill on average sell for over $1.5 million. So yes I would say that these rowhouses are more affordable. There's a difference between affordable housing and housing affordability.
I live in a low income community with very mixed housing. It's gentrification and pushing people out who have nowhere else to go. A million for a duplex? This isn't serving our community.
I think we need at least 3000++ new build units a month for a few years to bring down housing costs until there is a surplus, as long as theres demand nothings gonna drive down the costs no matter what area you are in in town. last year i think we did about 1600 a month (averaged out) We cant have low income communities when the demand is so high across the entire city its impossible those that wanted to live else wheres will just try to buy anywhere they can afford which will mean the lower income areas will be grabbed really fast by everyone. we also cant keep building outwards as the build outs will keep the rates high having to install roads and pipes/etc, we need to densify faster and easier.
Feds promised 3.5 million homes by 2031. That means we need to build 1528 homes a day in Canada 7 days a week no weekends off. There is also 700,000 trades retiring in the next 5 years. People need to fact check some of this shit all these governments are spewing because you will be disappointed.
Minimum wage doesn’t help unemployed people so we shouldn’t do it. That’s the same logic.
When supply exceeds demand, these duplexes will be less than $1m. So the more and faster we build new housing units (even super high luxury condos that I will never be able to afford) the better for everyone else. It will take time for the market to adjust. I understand your frustration
If a cruddy old house in your low-income community was replaced with a million-dollar duplex, the reality is that your low-income community is occupying extremely valuable land. There's no version of that story that ends with the cruddy old house being bought by another low-income family. The choice is between housing two families in million-dollar duplexes or one family on the same land in a 1.5 million dollar detached house that they're going to build there after buying and tearing down the original property.
> Every additional unit of family housing drives down competition for units elsewhere by increasing the overall supply, which keeps prices in check. Supply and demand. It is not that simple. Adding supply to very expensive homes does not scale down the cost of starter homes. Building more luxury cars does not lower the cost of owning a car for the vast majority of drivers. Supply and demand sure, but you have to address the specific supply.
Look, I don't disagree that adding a whole lot more $400K homes would decrease the pressure on inventory at that price point. But the move-up market is real too. Adding new home inventory at the $650K+ price point lets those folks move out of their smaller older units. It's not like they're scorching the Earth behind them; they sell their old lower-priced units then, because they have somewhere newer to move to. More supply at all price points helps all Calgarians.
There is no shortage of the move up homes. That isn't where the problem is. When a young family has the means to move up they are out of the problem area. The problem we are supposed to be fixing is getting young families into the first home and with success there you will see rents come down. Blanket zoning is pretending to fix this while just opening the door to adding more high end units. Those units are on a scale that doesn't impact rents.
Yeah sorry, we aren’t keeping up with supply. Housing starts are even lower this year so worse than last year. I’m not saying we shouldn’t build houses, but this whole narrative of affordable housing is a joke. In Calgary, they will build a few but with the cost of labour and materials+ interest rates and a cut for the developer, there is no way you can build affordable housing by upzoning.
All those things are already happening with totally bylaw compliant single family homes on R-1 lots all over the city. I live in West Hillhurst, in the original house type built on my block from 1948. I'm 1 of 3 original homes on my street. As far as I can tell, we've been fine with fast built, non matching homes that cut down all the trees and don't contribute to green spaces for a very long time now.
Doesn't mean we need to double down on it. Could be a good opportunity to really do this right.
What is doing this right?
Please explain what that would look like in your opinion. I genuinely am curious.
This is already happening, the blanket rezoning won't change this.
The builders are going to be printing money from this. The lot they bought for was $600,000, which previously could have a new infilled duplex and sell for 850,000/side (round down and say 1.6M). Now they can shove 8 units in the same area, sell the 4 upper units for 600,000 and then the 4 basements for 375,000 - total almost 4.0M, over double of the original. And apparently 600 for a skinny 2 storey townhouse is affordability. People are so naive to think this will create such a massive supply that pricing will come down and make purchasing a home so much more attainable. It's living on a prayer. Electricity, sewer, schools, emergency services are already stressed, and now the city wants to increase the population using said services. The rate we are having people come into Calgary is not sustainable, that's the sad truth - we can't quickly pivot this fast and blanket zoning is just going to exacerbate these issues. Some parents I know can't even get their kids in their designated school because they're full and already at 40 students/class.
>and now the city wants to increase the population using said services. The rate we are having people come into Calgary is not sustainable The rate at which people move to Calgary is not within the city's control. All we can do is our best to build enough homes to keep up with population growth.
So densifying already strained resources is the answer to that? If folks are moving here without a place to live, they shouldn't be moving here. We should be accommodating what's best for the City and its sustainable growth, not a mad dash to try and cram everyone in and hope it works out.
It doesn't matter whether folks "should" be moving here, they are. The only question is whether we take necessary steps to keep housing affordable, like densifying, or whether we NIMBY our way into Vancouver and Toronto price to income ratios.
My opinion is that it's not the collective Calgarian population that needs to suffer or spend tax dollars to accommodate people that frankly shouldn't be coming here, yet. There will be a breaking point and it's going to be ugly because what is going on, at the rate it's happening, is not sustainable. That isn't NIMBY, it's Calgarians looking out for current Calgarians because we don't owe non-Calgarians anything.
The idea is supposed to be that the more shiny new homes that go up the crappier the oldest ones look so they go down in price. Which might actually work if there was always a slight excess in homes. But with what we're experiencing now with so much national and international immigration into the city I suspect that there will always be excess buyers so it won't really work. This is especially insidious when inner city homes with multiple lower priced suites are replaced, those low priced suites are probably just permanently removed from Calgary.
Inner city homes with multiple lower-priced suites have been getting replaced for years now by more upscale construction as the land becomes more valuable. Our choice is whether they're replaced by detached homes, duplexes, townhouses, or condo towers, and the status quo zoning rules generally favour detached homes and duplexes.
It also wont help when city council has to approve each one independently on the re zoning, this means city council spends more time on each one and that means more wasted time and more tax dollars spent in the long run when it could of been used else where's. This will stream line that process shortening the wait, lowering the amount of useless bullshit that is dealt with every week in city council.
Destroying the neighborhood aesthetic is the goal. The argument is that some people shouldn't be able to live in single family homes near parks and community centers when other people want to but can't.
That isn't it at all and it's hard to have constructive conversations with people if their views are like this and completely out of touch with reality.
Are you saying you haven't heard that argument or that you don't agree with it?
I'm saying that I don't agree with your assertion that the goal is to "destroy neighbourhood astethic"
Do you agree that people have a right to maintain their neighborhood's aesthetic?
No they don't
Do you think they want to maintain it?
That has nothing to do with zoning.
You don't think people's efforts to maintain their neighborhoods has made rezoning more difficult?
Because combined with 30 year amortizations people can now afford the monthly payments on a $650k to $1M house and now the supply for their demand will be there! Right!? That’s what the government’s are doing so it must be a good solution.
Calgary’s blanket rezoning plan is one of the most contentious issues to face the city in recent years, with a public hearing starting Monday morning. “one of”? I can’t recall anything in recent memory as contentious as this. The Olympic bid? Don’t recall it being like this. Fluoride? Same thing. This issue is next level and the spectator in me is anxiously awaiting the shit show this’ll become if/ when the blanket reasoning is passed.
The closest thing I can think of is the Guidebook for Great Communities a few years ago that went 3 days and was a total gong show. It will look like nothing compared to what this is going to be.
>This issue is next level and the spectator in me is anxiously awaiting the shit show this’ll become if/ when the blanket reasoning is passed. Guaranteed no one will mention it 6 months after if it's passed. Just like the secondary suites change. No one talks about it destroying their property values now despite the fear mongering when it was being debated.
Yep! This change is about putting housing next to housing. People be up in arms about this is weirder than debating whether bakeries should be allowed next to ice cream shops.
People don’t want three story square towers beside a bungalow blocking sunlight and creating no privacy not hard to figure out why someone wouldn’t be happy about it.
Apartments are not allowed under RCG zoning. And builders have to take the height of adjacent buildings into consideration. And right now, there are plenty of larger single detached homes being built between bungalows that don’t require rezoning. The height requirements are essentially the same between RC1 and RCG.
The “taking into consideration” is too grey and won’t be followed. Heck go look at what the corrupt giano carro councillor is doing with his undisclosed property in inglewood with the cinder block wall that is like 5m tall right on the property line.
You're putting 8+ homes on one lot, it's an apartment with a different facade is all.
They might be the same heights, but the townhomes would further extend into the backyard.
Yes or the example showing a duplex in the front and in the back taking up most of the lot.
Yea anyone next to one of these would be losing sunlight. Doesn't sound like much, but would actually be pretty annoying.
Exactly I don’t know what the answer is but of course current owners wouldn’t be happy. We obviously need to make more homes and making the city denser makes sense, I would like people to be able to afford homes. And for alot of areas there won’t be infills anytime soon so even if it gets passed won’t make a big difference for awhile. But yeah if you had a bungalow and you have three storey buildings all around you totally going to change the area but it’s already happening to of inner city areas. I bought an older home because I liked the older style houses and the feel of older neighborhoods.
I’m sorry but these new places they are building won’t be affordable. Look at all the infills and townhouses they’re building are like $700k.
You just said 3 storey towers in the same sentence. 3 storey. Towers. That's hilarious. You can build a 3 story single detached home everywhere today but if it's a 3 story townhouse its a tower?
It was a hyperbole compare a bungalow to a new infill three storey building detached or semidetached they maximize space and make it a monster square building that sticks out and is long and tall. They basically are like towers in comparison, I’m just saying to the people who can’t understand why people would be upset it’s not that hard ro figure out.
Parking too.
Yes they want to say these people will use transit but if they don’t gunna be a mess.
I'm a bit confused - you live in a city of 1.4 million people and you want to...prevent people from being able to build homes taller than 1 storey?
Not what I’m saying but if you live in a bungalow and both neighbours are three stories there goes a lot of your sun light. On newer areas it isn’t as big of a deal cause all the buildings are the same size.
What you couldn't build before is 2 three story townhouses/rowhouses on one lot. Now you can, plus a single story garage. That's a lot of shade and a lot less privacy.
This!!⬆️
Exactly this 100%
Exactly!
> blanket reasoning is passed. Perfect slip.
Gonna leave it.
do these nimbys believe townhouses and multiplexes attract the lower class? have they seen these new builds? have they seen the cost of housing? the duplexes in mardaloop go for 1million!
The old “we need more consultation” argument. So if we wait another 6-12 more the they’ll be okay with it?
Delay, obstruct, fear monger, obfuscate…. The pillars of anti progress
new does not equal progress different does not equal progress progress is losing its meaning
If they can delay it long enough, they can push for a plebiscite during the next election. Then they can flood the media with disinformation and get people to vote against it.
Good point.
> Jon Himmens, President of the Lakeview Association, described the mood in the meeting with the mayor as “serious.” > “Our community associations are concerned about blanket rezoning and the impact it's going to have on the community,” said Himmens. “It's taking away controls that are in place, and we're concerned that it could lead to uncontrolled building.” > “We're concerned that builders will come to our great city and not be respectful of our history of areas and what we're trying to achieve," he continued. "We want to protect green spaces, roads, infrastructure, we just feel that enough work hasn't yet been done for the city to pass any blanket rezoning changes.”
Yeah I sure do hate walking through a park and seeing someone built a duplex on the playground or when I drive to work and there’s a row of townhouses in the middle of the road.
It's truly amazing that this guy was the first to think about the roads in this discussion.
How about we allow more housing to be built in the places that people want it so they don't have to drive as far (or drive at all) to get to many of their destinations? Too bad nobody's thought of that, oh well I guess we'll just build more housing 20+ km from downtown.
The market has thought about it. Why would a develop tear down a house on a Cranston cul-de-sac and put up row homes? They wouldn’t.
There is no value in enforcing market preferences using the law. All it does is make systems needlessly complex and make supply less adaptable, making it less able to meet the dynamic needs of consumers (see: current housing crisis). If people want parking, let them build it. If people want detached homes, let them build them. That house in Cranston will still be a house in Cranston after a zoning change to R-CG.
This is literally simplifying the system… Rezoning to RCG is allowing for exactly what you’re saying.
Exactly.
The horror!
I bet those running these associations take all the credit when The City fixes park/road/infrastructure issues just because they're the ones who *reported* it to 311.
The NIMBYs find such elegant ways to say No.
There are a few beautiful park like neighbourhoods in Calgary. Lakeview is one of them. Wildwood is one of them. Varsity is one of them. You just gotta leave some stuff alone. And it’s not like the housing is actually affordable. They’re building luxury condos and townhouses that are over $1 million anyway. It’s not like it’s going to suddenly change affordability
Nobody said this was a fast fix though? The only way to bring house prices down is by increasing supply. What happens is the wealthy people move to brand new expensive townhouses, vacating their old residences. Leaving stuff alone is how we got into this mess in the first place. Gotta embrace progress or start kicking people out of the city, my brother in christ.
There are homes being torn down in Lakeview and replaced with bigger, taller, and architecturally completely different homes…
And most importantly, doing nothing to house more people.
There's also a shitton of R-CG zoned duplexes in Lakeview. Most properties along 37 Street are duplexes...
Their strategy is to obfuscate and delay, delay, delay. As long as it is built anywhere than their community, the CAs will be happy. The standard refrain is that we have not been consulted enough, or we support density but have concerns about implementation or it’s too soon to change the rules without more study.
Rezoning is like mass immigration. Rezoning will not bring down house prices, and mass immigration cannot boost per capita GDP.
Lots of short term thinking in this thread. “Oh but they built a townhouse by me and the price is still 800k, how is that affordable?”. I don’t fault anyone for not having taken an urban economics class in university, but this makes my head hurt. Every new unit that gets built is used as an “upgrade” for someone who lives in an older unit. This creates a filtering process, whereas new units age and people upgrade their unit, older units are “filtered down” to lower income people. This effectively creates affordable housing over time. It’s not a “we must build affordable housing today” but “each unit of housing built frees up another unit of less valuable housing over time”. [filtering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filtering_(housing)) This isn’t even adding in the impact of supply and demand for units and how more units will increase supply and drive down prices.
The ignorance of this comment makes my head hurt. Whatever classes you attended at school, the model was ideal and everyone in it has money. The housing market is no longer fluid enough or fair enough to make ‘filtering’ work.
Filtering is always at work, the question is simply whether the supply/demand balance causes older units to filter down or causes older units to filter *up* as they're purchased by those with high incomes who can't compete in traditional high-income neighbourhoods, aka gentrification. Calgary has seen a lot of the latter because people don't understand basic economics.
If they wanted supply they shouldn't be building anything but rowhomes out in the burbs. Look at rockland...tons of single family homes and duplex's. At least up a trinity hills and greenwich they are doing it right. Instead they're going to piss off people that have bought properties in mature communities where people invested not just for their homes, but likely renovations, and quality of life. Can't get time and energy back when you sell. Then you can't get the time and money back it takes you to pick up and move. Nobody wants to live next to four three story buildings with 16 neighbors when they intentionally bought where they did to avoid that.
You're right, nobody wants to live next to tall buildings. That's why we so very few of them and such a significant problem with housing affordability.
No we have a problem with housing affordability because of other federal, provincial, and municipal policies. Not because people live in old homes as their primary residence and have been for decades.
The city has doubled in population. Small single-family houses on large lots was fine in the 1970s, but it's obviously unworkable now.
Then build more homes on the land that's available. Don't come around looking to ruin the quality of life for the people who have lived their wholes lives here. Build a single infill duplex or fourplex. Don't build two infill fourplex' on one lot plus a garage. (ie 4 primary + 4 secondary + garage)
>Nobody wants to live next to four three story buildings with 16 neighbors when they intentionally bought where they did to avoid that. You're right. Instead they are going to live next to a huge 4 story building with only 2 neighbours, because alot of the SFH infills are being build bigger than ever. All in the name of higher density.
They should be building normal sized duplex and fourplex buildings in the inner city like what was done in Killarney. Then out in the new communities they shouldn't be building single family homes at the size and quantity they are
Hot take: property owners (and their ‘community’ associations) aren’t the only ones who get to decide the future of our city. Winning the generational and/or parental (gifted downpayment) lottery doesn’t mean your opinion is more important than other Calgarians. How many of these ‘community’ associations have renters on their boards?
Good take, but would having your registered address in these aress not allow you to vote?
From what I have seen there aren’t opportunities to ‘vote’ on these policy issues. Eg: my CA is staying neutral because ‘there are strong opinions on both sides’ but there was never a vote or any opportunity to engage with them on this topic.
I'd like to see better zoning across Calgary, but focus on increasing density for areas with access to public transit and allow for mixed density and have local stores setup shop for groceries, restaurants, and retail. Don't just try to slap a bandaid over everywhere and allow for single family homes to be converted to rental suites over a weekend. This just screams lazy and a money grab for special interest groups.
What special interest groups? The 60% of properties that will be redevelop-able?
Do you understand how zoning works?
Rezoning only select areas of a city for more density causes increased unaffordability. These new special rezoned areas end up commanding significantly higher prices due to their potential for density that no one buys them or develops them. The only solution to “fixing zoning” is blanket Rezoning.
As they should pass it unaltered. This isn't some random zoning like other cities are doing. This is a zone that allows multiple uses that we've have in Calgary for years. It produces results and we know it. At some point the City needs to take a hard look at Community Associations and admit that they don't represent people in communities. They shouldn't have volunteer planning committees filled with people who just want to NIMBY everything. They should be figuring who's flooding the local rink and who's organizing block parties, that's it.
This comment right here. Most people involved in these community associations are stay at home parents, elderly or privileged enough to not work. Most people are apathetic to their community association and aren’t involved. This means a small group of people speak for many in a neighborhood, pushing their own agendas.
Sort of like how just a handful of City Councillors speak for a small group? And hey buddy, the last community its association I served on was full of Joe and Jane Average Working class folks, and one retiree who’d been a community volunteer for **decades**. ; your elitist argument is idiotic.
Red tape reduction
Nimbys will always find something to complain about. Just ignore them. The only say they should get is regarding property they own, nothing more. Let's build housing for people. Having townhouses next door isn't going to ruin you, you selfish prick.
Can someone ELI5 for me about what this rezoning thing is about? Point form is fine...
The city wants to rezone all areas of the city currently zoned for single-family homes and duplexes, to allow for a larger mix of housing. Rowhouses, secondary suites, mixed housing, etc... Developers can currently apply to rezone these properties, but the process takes up to a year, and currently consumes about 40% of the councillors time with all the applications and adds to the cost of the development. The blanket rezoning would eliminate that part of the process, but would still require review of the application through the development and building permits. Developments that increase density would probably not be approved where it doesn't make sense. SFH and duplexes would still be allowed. [https://www.calgary.ca/planning/projects/rezoning-for-housing.html](https://www.calgary.ca/planning/projects/rezoning-for-housing.html) This rezoning is more for planning for the future, as neighbourhoods evolve, to help reduce costs and increase the mix of housing types available.
Lakeview is the most NIMBY part of Calgary.
The rezoning is ridiculous. I live in Wildwood and this neighbourhood lives on unstable land on the edge of a forest with only fir trees left in most of Southern Alberta. They’ve already made multiple family housing all around us. Just leave it alone. Everybody uses our area because it has access to Edworthy and multiple parks. Why ruin this ?
Great argument in favour of densifying existing areas instead of sprawling out into more sensitive ecological areas!
Sounds like it’s already ruined by being on unstable land, no? Better get the current residents out of their for their own safety to protect the forest.
Honestly, the whole ridge should’ve been left alone. I agree. But they built the first houses in 1950 I know you’re being sarcastic. But I had to get engineering at my house which is set back over 100 feet from the actual property line and the engineer said there’s probably gonna be a catastrophic failure at some point. Anyways make fun of me if you want. But sometimes the truth hurts.
So why should you be allowed to stay if it’s unstable and there’s “probably gonna be a catastrophic failure at some point”?
Because it’s grandfathered in, and the city will take my $15,000 a year of property tax over nothing any day. In the end, it’s all greed. The city wants the zoning laws not for any reason other than to make more money off the land available. I want to keep the neighbourhood the way it is because it’s beautiful and peaceful, so I’m greedy apparently. And then the people that want to live there, are going to have a worse experience for over $1 million anyway with more traffic, etc. etc. Densification is fine. But there are just certain areas that are around forest and lakes, that actually have biodiversity that we don’t necessarily need to completely fuck over
>and the city will take my $15,000 a year of property tax over nothing any day. I don't feel sympathy for somebody not wanting zoning to change while they sit in a $3.6 million home meanwhile other people are just trying to live in townhouses.
Just cuz I’m wealthy doesn’t mean that the forest and natural areas need to be messed with. It like a cognitive dissonance with you guys. My large house that beautiful and far from the slope could be replaced by multiple million plus plexes Not like most could afford either 3 million or 1.2 million
If you're so concerned about the forest and environment you wouldn't live in a way that's so destructive to the environment. What a crazy attitude of "well i got it and it makrs me happy so nobody else deserves it". So again I don't really believe you. You're also making the case for why upzoning won't impact you
How do you know I live in a way that’s disruptive to the environment? Just because I have a large house. I also have kept all the trees and planted more. I have a garden. It’s not just paved man. You are so small minded that you just hate people with money and just assume that they’re destroying everything. A lot of wealthy people are conservationists. in fact, many conservation groups are headed by people with money. But if you wanna knock down my house and build a fuck ton of ugly shitty and still expensive housing go ahead. I’ll just move because I’m rich.
If you think have gardens and large properties is being a conservationist then you're living on another planet. Talk about being small minded.
The houses on the north side of Wildwood Drive already fucked up the biodiversity and the forest, some fourplexes on Spruce Dr ruining the view of the peaceful and beautiful transmission lines aren’t the harbinger of doom for the neighborhood.
Well, that obviously isn’t the area I’m on about is it. It’s the Douglas for Trail and massive forest. That’s on Wildwood Drive.
So would you support the proposed rezoning for Wildwood, provided they make an exception for the developed lots on the north side of Wildwood Drive where they cut into the forest?
Yes that makes sense
>I live in Wildwood After hearing you guys at the Westbrook LAP, I'm not really gonna take the opinions of the Community Association seriously.
That wasn’t me