A marathon Calgary City Council committee meeting ended late Thursday night with a plan to continue work on up to eight new growth communities.
It was a lengthy meeting that began Monday in which the city’s infrastructure and planning committee whittled multiple growth solutions together, said Ward 9 Coun. Gian-Carlo Cara, who is also the chairman of the commission.
“What we were doing was starting the conversation about our growth, about making decisions about our growth that will ultimately be made in November,” Kara said.
“And we’ve talked about the money we’re going to spend in established areas to accommodate more and more growth in established areas.”
According to the city’s report, the need for new suburbs is driven by expected population growth between 2023 and 2026. The report says the city’s population is expected to grow by an additional 88,000 residents during that time, and this will translate into a need of about 44,000 dwellings.
The meeting included discussion of the creation of up to eight new suburban communities, five of which would not incur additional capital costs as they would be located near communities with already approved infrastructure.
However, communities will still be tagged with new operating costs.
The five recommended communities include three in the far southeast corner of Calgary:
- Seton Ridge
- Logan Landing
- Homesickness
The other two are Lewiston, located in the far northwest of the city, and Belvedere West, located on the eastern border of the city near 17th Avenue SE
Three additional potential communities will also come back to the council at a later date once further analysis of the “associated risks” has been completed. These communities are Rangeview Trafford and Glacier Ridge Communities C and D.
Cara said the “most contentious” vote of the week he voted against came Thursday night, when the council voted 6-5 to direct the administration to prepare bylaws to possibly remove the growth management overlay of the city for five of the proposed communities.
This can lead to accelerated development. That decision will now be dealt with by the council as part of a full meeting at the end of July before heading to another meeting in September or October.
Work on the questions being asked for the other three potential communities will also continue before September.
According to Carra, the move signals to players in the development industry that “if you lobby, hell, we’re listening”, given the move by those on the council not to wait for the budget to invest and unlock new undeveloped areas.
“Hopefully, the checks and balances we have along the way, with cooler heads, will prevail [and] our climate strategy will influence decision-making,” he said.
“And we’re going to make a much more thoughtful, comprehensive decision on growth in November, and we’re not going to accept what was proposed by the committee.”
Ward 9 Councilman Gian-Carlo Cara said the decision to draft bylaws to possibly remove the city’s growth management overlay is a move to favor business at the expense of being careful stewards of the public purse. (Justin Pennell/CBC)
Department 10 count. Andre Chabot, who voted for the proposal, said the new suburbs are critical because affordability is “going out the window” and because the city has a limited supply of single-family, condominium and detached homes.
“There are only a few developers who have the land to develop this type of product, and each individual developer can only build so many homes each year,” Chabot said.
“So we think it would be helpful to have more competition, more developers able to bring more product to market earlier, to alleviate some of the inflationary increases that are currently being seen in the single-family housing sector.”
Calgary currently has 39 new communities already underway. In addition, there are approved supplies for a total of 15 to 21 years. The eight proposed growth communities would add two to three years.
Department 10 count. Andre Chabot said the approved developments would have the city collect fees from developers that could be used to build infrastructure needed elsewhere. (CBC)
Chabot called the projected increase of 22,000 residents a year “very conservative” given the current high price of oil.
“But even a conservative estimate of 22,000 a year means we’re not going to have enough supply there,” he said.
“Unless we use the investments made by the previous council to at least facilitate the ability of developers to move forward with some of the products that are in high demand right now, we will continue to drive the price up the market, making it impossible for people to can enter this market.”
Department 1 count. Sonya Sharp also voted for the motion. She said the council has a lot of work to do.
“The construction industry is under pressure to deliver as many homes as possible and in [the least] time as possible,” she said.
The conversation surrounding the potential new communities comes after Calgary council decided not to add 11 new communities on the city’s outskirts at the end of 2020.
This was followed by council approval in 2018 of 14 new communities, although the city administration at the time only approved eight based on lower demand for new homes.
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