Hundreds of people rallied in front of Calgary City Hall on Monday to support or oppose blanket rezoning as council heads into a public hearing that is expected to last several days.
The proposed bylaw is one of around 80 recommendations in the City of Calgary’s housing strategy, which will change the base residential zoning district to include more housing types like rowhouses and fourplexes.
Currently, the majority of residential areas are zoned to only allow single-family homes by default.
The recommendation would change the base zoning type to RC-G, which allows for single-family homes and duplexes, triplexes and rowhouses. City officials say the change would “simplify the process” for landowners and developers and will remove six months from the process.
According to the City of Calgary, the housing strategy will allow for an increased supply of housing and support affordable housing providers. The strategy will also allow more diverse housing choices to meet the needs of equity-deserving populations and address the affordable housing needs of Indigenous people living in Calgary.
A public hearing is currently being held and more than 741 people are registered to speak as of Monday morning, with thousands more submitting their opinions online. This comes after council defeated a motion to hold a plebiscite vote during the October 2025 municipal election.
Mayor Jyoti Gondek said the public hearing is scheduled to last all week, but council will have a brief recess from the public hearing from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday so the Calgary Planning Commission can have its meeting.
In a presentation on Monday morning, city administration noted the need for more homes as house prices increased by 316 per cent from 1991 to 2023, while incomes increased by only 127 per cent. Home prices are now 4.9 times higher than incomes in 2023, according to the presentation.
Nearly one in five households in Calgary cannot afford housing, administration said.
City administration said the proposed bylaw will increase housing supply and demand, reduce time and costs to deliver more housing, and increase affordable housing throughout the city. The presentation estimates the proposed bylaw will introduce more than 1,500 new housing units and secondary units annually.
This will help declining communities, support local services, attract businesses, attract people to move to the city and support Calgarians and their changing housing needs, the presentation said.
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However, city administration also said the bylaw is not needed for federal funding. Gondek later clarified that when Calgary submitted an application to the federal Housing Accelerator Fund last June, there were no bylaw conditions that needed to be met.
Some rally participants disagreed with city administration, saying rezoning reform is a simple answer to the complex affordable housing problem.
“Urban densification is an issue and affordable housing is an issue, but what we maybe disagree on is the methodology about how we’re going to respond to it,” said Chris Davis. “It seems to be imposing a simple answer on a complex question, so folks who live in suburban communities are feeling that they’re being told what they have got to comply with.”
Others said they don’t oppose diversifying a community but it needs to be done “with respect.”
“We need more (housing types), but it has to be done with respect to the community, and it has to align with the houses in that community and that street,” said Pam Higgs, a Brentwood resident.
“All we’re asking for is a voice. We want to know and we want to see what comes into our community … This takes the control out of it, in my personal opinion. It takes the voice away from the citizens.”
Guy Buchanan, another rally participant, said the proposed blanket rezoning bylaw is “unnecessary.” He said there are already 440,000 opportunities in established areas in greenfield sites, and the city doesn’t need to “go into single-family neighbourhoods and disrupt the character.
“We need housing for people that truly need a hand up. But we could be putting that on LRT sites along major thoroughfares and underutilized or vacant commercial sites … So I’m not against densification. Let’s put it in the right place. We don’t need to attack the character of single-family neighborhoods,” he told Global News.
“There’s opportunities to put an extra suite in an existing single-family home. We don’t need to change the character of the most sought-after class of real estate in the city of Calgary. This, in my opinion, is the backbone of what makes the city so great.”
Participants also said the city did not do a good job educating residents about the proposed bylaw.
“Part of the problem and part of the anger is, the lack of communication of true engagement with Calgarians … I talked to people, neighbours and whatnot. They really don’t know what this is all about. And so it speaks to the lack of engagement and knowledge about what’s happened,” Buchanan added.
Supporters of proposed bylaw hold rally during lunch break
A rally in support of the proposed blanket rezoning bylaw was also held in front of Calgary City Hall on Monday afternoon.
Ryan Andersen, lead organizer of Calgary Alliance of the Common Good and a Lutheran pastor, said there is a wide coalition of organizations that are thinking about the housing crisis and the city should be supporting affordable housing initiatives.
“The reality is, a house is a basic need that everyone needs and there are too many people who can’t afford that,” he said.
Mateusz Salmassi, vice president external of the University of Calgary Students’ Union, said he’s heard stories of students forced into difficult situations because they couldn’t find affordable housing.
“Students are facing a housing crisis … Students are living in their cars. I have heard of students curling up in a corner of the library because they don’t have other alternatives,” he said.
“City council has a chance to vote ‘yes’ to a measure that will result in building more density across the city. Students want to live in their communities, they want to live off campus, they want to live with their own families … But the point is, we need housing choice and we need more supply so students can have a roof over their heads.”
Kathryn Davies with More Neighbours Calgary, a volunteer-based grassroots pro-housing group, said the proposed bylaw is an unnecessarily divisive issue. She told Global News she sees rowhouses, duplexes and triplexes being developed in her community and she has no issues with it.
“We need to do everything to address the housing shortage in the city of Calgary right now and this is one step towards that solution,” she said. “It’s in place in a lot of Canadian cities and jurisdictions and a lot of American jurisdictions are moving in this direction. It’s making a bit more room in established communities to create more housing.”
Davies said the City could have done a better job explaining the proposed bylaw but said a lot of people are also only showing up to engagement sessions “only to yell.”
“There were engagement issues on both sides. I think the city could have done a better job, but I have been to a few engagement sessions and when you have a few people who show up and they’re not interested in learning … It makes it very difficult for the city to communicate effectively,” she said.
Social service groups urge council to prioritize housing affordability
Representatives from many social service organizations across Calgary spoke in favour of the proposed bylaw on Monday.
Inam Teja, policy and advocacy specialist at the Calgary Drop-In Centre (DI), said solving Calgary’s affordable housing crisis should be council’s number one priority.
In March, about 212 people used the DI’s services for the first time, which he said was a significant increase from March 2023. Services at the DI are getting stretched thinner and thinner as housing affordability “continues to deteriorate,” Teja said.
“There is a direct connection between Calgary’s abysmal rental market and the number of people in our city without adequate housing. The shortage of rental housing in our city means that there is a growing population of individuals who face housing exclusion because they can’t compete for the scarce available housing units,” Teja said.
The policy specialist noted that many people cannot compete in the rental market when hundreds of rental applications are being submitted for so few units, which means landlords get to pick the tenants they want. Others may be able to find roommates or stay with friends but these options don’t exist for many.
Almost 7,000 people are on the Calgary Housing Company waitlist for affordable housing units, Teja said.
“It is consistently the most marginalized in our society who are left out, and this is not a phenomenon unique to Calgary … If we are serious about being a city where all Calgarians can thrive, then we need to focus on ensuring that we have enough rental housing supply to raise our vacancy rates and keep our rents in check,” Teja said.
“Outcome number one of the housing strategy was to increase housing supply, and the purpose of today’s rezoning proposal is to allow for more housing to be built.
“The DI recognizes that rezoning isn’t going to solve homelessness on its own, nor will it even make a really big impact immediately, but it is an important step. We have a broken housing market, in large part because our supply can’t grow as fast as demand due to restrictive zoning.”
Courtney Mo from Momentum Calgary, a charitable organization that tries to reduce poverty through social and economic strategies, urged council to approve the bylaw. Momentum Calgary’s research shows affordable housing is tied to socio-economic indicators such as employment skills and hope for the future, she said.
“The lack of affordable and diverse supply throughout the city is undermining the charitable and social services of organizations like ours,” Mo told council on Monday afternoon.
Mo said many graduates from Momentum Calgary’s long-term programs are unable to buy a house, nor are they able to compete in the city’s rental market.
“Please pay attention to who is able to speak to you in the coming days and who are able to make an online submission. Living in poverty and finding housing is a full-time job, and we struggled to find and support a program participant who is able to speak to you today.”
Andrea Cox from YWCA Calgary also spoke in favour of the proposed bylaw. She said the lack of affordable and diverse housing in Calgary has only worsened since she last spoke in favour of the housing strategy in September.
She said the racial discrimination and stigma against those on income supports persist when seeking market housing, and members of the outreach team see victims of domestic abuse choose to stay with their partners because of a lack of housing options. Many residents at the YWCA are also staying in the facilities for longer because of the lack of housing.
“We want to express the dire need for any and all actions that will help address the housing crisis we are currently facing,” Cox said.
“We know cities that have rezoned their base residential districts to allow for more housing density have seen increases in housing supply compared to cities that share the same macroeconomics but didn’t choose to rezone.
“The YWCA urges council to demonstrate leadership and continue to think of ways to increase housing supply and to make sure all Calgarians have opportunities to live dignified and autonomous lives.”
Mayor, Chabot weigh in on public hearing, federal funding for housing
For Gondek, the public hearing is an opportunity to hear opinions and concerns about the proposed bylaw.
“I think part of the issue is planning language versus plain language. I think there’s a lot of misinformation that’s (challenging) right now, and this is very emotional for people. A lot of people’s home is their greatest asset,” the mayor told reporters on Monday afternoon.
“People want to be heard and they want their concerns to be addressed or they want some changes made to the motion, so that’s what we’re trying to do: trying to listen to everyone to make sure we do the right thing.”
Gondek said the proposed bylaw was a recommendation made by administration, but said she believes there will be amendments to the motion after the public hearing ends and council starts to debate it.
“We’ve seen a preview of a couple of them, but I imagine that as we listen to the public, there will be amendments that come forward,” she said.
“And just to be clear, what we will do after we ask questions of administration is pause to make sure everyone can get their amendments forward and administration can review them and clerks can prepare them.
“We will do our best to make sure that we are making good, efficient decisions on behalf of Calgarians and not getting caught up on just bringing a series of amendments.”
Gondek also noted that she wants renters’ voices to be heard. A lot of people in Calgary rent for a variety of reasons, she said, but many existing policies and discussions prioritize homeowners and the needs of renters need to be considered as well.
“My desire is to have the federal government to also understand that renters matter and they need to have access to programs just like homeownership,” Gondek said.
Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot said the proposed blanket rezoning bylaw is a passionate issue for many Calgarians and many feel like it will seriously impact their quality of life.
“There’s a number of reasons why people are coming here today. I think it’s good that they actually came forward to voice their opinion,” he said.
Chabot said he doesn’t want to impede the city’s ability to receive federal funding for affordable housing but expressed a desire to discuss some recommendations in the housing strategy.
“The only reason why I voted for all of the recommendations in the first place is because I didn’t want to stand in the way of receiving any federal funding … I knew we would have another day to discuss them, including land use and budget,” he said.
“I’m not going to stand in the way of getting federal money if all I have to do is say ‘yes’ today, because there will be another day for me to discuss the other items.”
–With files from Adam MacVicar, Global News.
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