Calgary’s longest public hearing wraps up after 12 days

Twelve days in, Calgary’s marathon public hearing on blanket rezoning officially came to a close on Monday night around 9:30 p.m.

But the vote on whether or not to change Calgary’s zoning regulations won’t be held until next week, according to Mayor Jyoti Gondek.

In what was Calgary’s longest public hearing, council heard from more than 700 residents over the course of 12 days, who argued either in favour or against the city’s blanket rezoning proposal.

The blanket rezoning proposal, which is part of the city’s housing strategy, is a bid to increase density in established communities by allowing for the redevelopment of singlefamily homes into other housing forms, including duplexes and rowhouses.

While more than 1,000 Calgarians registered to speak, the meeting saw a growing attrition rate toward the end of the public hearing. By Monday, it was common for just two or three members of a particular panel of five speakers to be present when called upon.

Now that the public submissions have wrapped, city administration will present a “what we heard” report to council on Thursday morning, recapping the results of the 12 days of presentations, which began on April 22.

The reason council won’t hear that presentation until Thursday is because there is another pre-scheduled hearing with roughly 40 items on it for Tuesday, which is scheduled to stretch into Wednesday afternoon.

After Thursday’s presentation, council will reconvene on May 13 to ask questions to administration, introduce amendments, deliberate the blanket rezoning proposal and then, finally, vote on whether or not to amend the land use bylaw to allow for blanket rezoning. Postmedia/reuters