🎤SPEAK UP: The future of the City of Calgary is at stake this week
City Council must choose between a future where Calgarians pay higher taxes and fees for less services to the benefit of suburban developers whose business model relies on socializing the cost of growth and spreading city resources ever thinner across expanding city boundaries. Alternatively, this council can choose to break with the status quo by charting a path towards a financially responsible city where infrastructure for existing communities is properly maintained and public services are actually strengthened with new growth.
On Monday, Calgary City Council will begin their public hearing on the repeal of Rezoning for Housing. After the hearing, they will decide whether to repeal rezoning for gentle density and force Calgary further down the financially unsustainable path of more sprawl or to improve how we build gentle density so that the city can grow within our existing footprint and benefit existing communities.
🎤 Sign up to speak at the March 23 public hearing
You can participate in the public hearing and submission to City Council on the proposed repeal of the Rezoning for Housing Bylaw.
🥾 Proposed partial rezoning offers pathway to solving the $1-billion housing impasse
Mayor Farkas successfully campaigned in the October election to repeal and replace rezoning with gentle density, but to date he has not provided Calgarians with a proposed path forward for “replacement” or how he intends to “support gentle density while building a variety of homes at a more affordable price point” as he promised in his platform.
With one day to go before the March 23 public hearing on the proposed repeal of the Rezoning for Housing Bylaw, a full repeal of rezoning risks:
🔥 Lighting on fire $861-million in federal funding for housing and infrastructure;
💰 Doubling down on Calgary's reliance on costly sprawl that paves over farmland and natural ecosystems around Calgary;
🚰 Burdening Calgary taxpayers with the cost of replacing aging infrastructure in low density neighbourhoods adding to Calgary's $49-billion infrastructure gap to replace aging roads, public transit, wastewater infrastructure and more.
Meanwhile, at the request of City Council, City Administration has prepared a solution that would, in effect, partially repeal the least popular components of rezoning for housing while still maintaining citywide gentle density, preserving federal funding, addressing the aging infrastructure crisis, addressing the lack of housing options, all while incorporating community-focused feedback on the current R-CG rezoning.
The table below outlines three options for City Council after the March 23 public hearing:
- Full Repeal of Rezoning
- No Repeal of Current Rezoning (R-CG)
- Partial Repeal of Rezoning
Markup of City of Calgary table comparing options for full repeal, no repeal, or partial repeal of rezoning. Yellow rows and red text added by Project Calgary. (Source table: City of Calgary)
⚡️ TAKE ACTION: Help us ask City Council to support citywide gentle density so we can reinvest public funds in existing neighbourhoods
Calgary must build new housing within its existing footprint and stop diverting funds for more sprawl. Council must support citywide rezoning for community-focused gentle density (partial repeal or no repeal of rezoning) so we can preserve the billion dollars in federal funding for infrastructure and housing, address Calgary's aging infrastructure crisis and provide more affordable housing options citywide.
We are 1 day away from the start of the public hearing on the repeal of the Rezoning for Housing Bylaw.
Here's how you can make your voice heard:
🎤 Sign up to speak at the March 23 public hearing
You can participate in the public hearing and submission to City Council on the proposed repeal of the Rezoning for Housing Bylaw.
📨 Email City Council
Email City Council and ask them to vote against full repeal of rezoning.
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