Games could ease Calgary’s affordable housing shortage

CALGARY A draft plan for a potential Calgary 2026 Olympic bid says the event could create more affordable housing in a region that badly needs it and provide a welcome jolt to the provincial economy.

“Calgary has one of the lowest stocks of affordable and social housing in the country relative to the size of the city,” the Calgary 2026 bid corporation said in a report presented to city council on Tuesday, noting a shortfall of 15,000 affordable housing units.

The plan envisions spending $600 million on about 2,800 units that would temporarily house athletes and officials during the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games and then be turned over to longterm housing. About 20 per cent would be at market rates, with the rest set aside for affordable housing and other non-market uses.

There is a plan for three to four new affordable housing projects that would yield at least 600 units, as well as a new 200-unit seniors’ complex. It also said there could be new housing for urban Indigenous people and students.

An athletes’ village planned near the Stampede grounds would accommodate 3,100 people during the Games, then be converted into 70 affordable, 140 attainable or near-market, and 500 market units.

Canmore — which would host biathlon and cross-country ski events — would also build a 1,200bed athletes’ village that would be repurposed to more than 240 affordable housing units.

“The greatest challenge facing the Canmore municipality is community affordability and specifically access to affordable housing,” the report said.

Construction on the new housing would take place in 2024 and 2025.

The plan does not mention any new spending on public transportation in the city or mountain venues. It assumes a previously planned new rail transit link between downtown and southeast Calgary will be complete by 2026.