Rezoning hearing calms on Day 2
After an emotionally charged start on Monday, it was noticeably quieter at city hall on the second day of the marathon public hearing to consider citywide rezoning.
While a day earlier Calgary's municipal building was packed with hundreds of people and two opposing rallies were held outside, the city hall atrium was barely busier than usual and the public gallery was sparse when the meeting resumed at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Ward 3 Coun. Jasmine Mian said a format that alternates between hearing panels of speakers who are for and against the rezoning proposal may have led to a higher attrition rate as people realize their view has already been presented multiple times.
“Once people have heard their perspective — whether that's for or against — repeated multiple times, I think people realize, `you know what? my perspective is being honoured here.' ” said Mian, who pitched the idea of alternating panels as a notice of motion a few weeks ago.
The public hearing, which includes more than 750 registered speakers, centres on a proposed land-use bylaw amendment that would change the city's base residential zoning district to residential grade-oriented infill (R-CG).
R-CG would allow property owners to redevelop a wider mix of low-density housing forms, such as duplexes, fourplexes and row houses, on their lots without first applying for a landuse redesignation. City administration argues rezoning would help improve Calgary's housing scarcity, particularly in older neighbourhoods currently zoned solely for single-family detached homes.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the blanket rezoning proposal is just one of dozens of recommendations included in the city's housing strategy, which aims to boost Calgary's market and belowmarket housing supply.
“If people are equating rezoning to being the only solution for housing affordability, it's simply not,” Gondek told reporters. “We have a robust strategy that includes 98 different steps.”
During his allotted five minutes on Tuesday,
Wildwood resident Thomas Caldwell denied that developers have any incentive to build affordable homes in his neighbourhood, citing the high land prices and demand. He pointed out newer infills in Wildwood often sell for well over $1 million.
“Where are we going to build these affordable homes for people who are range-bound at $200,000?” he said. “The notion they're going to be able to live anywhere — that this is going to add choices and affordability anywhere — is flawed. It's just false.”
Caldwell suggested the city should centralize its affordable housing efforts on municipally owned land and in greenfield communities on the city's outskirts, where the density allowed under R-CG is already permitted.
Ward 13 Coun. Dan Mclean said he agreed new infills are rarely what most Calgarians would consider affordable. “Everything we've seen so far, where we've densified areas, the home prices have gone up. Maybe this isn't the answer.”
Taking the opposite stance
Tuesday was Chloe Chan, who said Calgary's competitive rental market is preventing young renters from buying their first home. The Capitol
Hill resident criticized Calgary's “relentless” urban sprawl of mostly single-family homes.
“Like a weed, we've crept further outward, destroying forests and wetlands as we build homes that need to be connected by increasingly expensive roads and pipes,” she said.
Chan also pointed out council already approves 95% of rezoning applications for R-CG redevelopments, calling the current zoning regulations “nothing but a time suck, a waste of taxpayer money and a hindrance to building the types of housing Calgary most desperately needs.”