Calgary city council is hitting the pause button on new communities in the city.
Tuesday night, council declined all 11 new business cases from developers.
Various councillors tried presenting amendments to the motion that would approve some or all of the business cases, but in the end, council voted to recommend the developers bring the cases back during the next application cycle.
Ward 3 Councillor Jyoti Gondek said the decision sends a strong message to Calgarians and the world that city councillors were “being persuaded by the development industry.”
“There may have been individual members of council who wanted to move all 11 business cases,” Gondek said.
“I know certainly those of us that had cases in our ward examined them very carefully, and we made a decision yesterday not to move forward with any of those business cases because the timing is not right.”
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In 2018, council approved 14 new business cases.
With the current housing market conditions, city administration estimated there’s enough single and semi-detached homes to last until 2032, enough multi-residential units to stretch to 2038.
Following the vote, Gondek presented a motion that would have council consider growth in a more holistic fashion — new, old and industrial areas.
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“We have demonstrated that we need to understand growth in a more holistic manner and continually coming with new growth communities versus industrial growth versus established areas is segmenting what we should be doing in a very holistic way,” Gondek said Wednesday.
“So I think the lesson learned from yesterday is we need to be better about considering city growth overall.”
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