By Kathryn Davies and Alex McColl
Once again, some members of city council are shirking their responsibilities by delaying action on the housing crisis.
Calgarians need more safe and affordable homes, and these homes need to get approved and built. A contingent of council would prefer to kick the can down the road to the next municipal election in 2025 as the housing crisis worsens. Moving at the speed of business, indeed.
An informal coalition — councillors Dan McLean, Andre Chabot, Sonya Sharp, Sean Chu, and Terry Wong — opposed to housing affordability appears to have taken shape on council. These five opposed the Housing and Affordability Task Force in June of 2023, opposed (and tried to gut) the Housing Strategy in September, and are now dragging their heels to delay action until the end of their terms.
The Housing Strategy’s base residential rezoning proposal is scheduled for public comment on April 22. These councillors appear to be afraid of what they might hear, or of the decisions they will be forced to make.
With this effort at a plebiscite, they are opting to do nothing instead of listening to Calgarians and responding to an urgent crisis. Councillors Chabot and McLean have a proven track record of voting against plebiscite results, suggesting that their motivation isn’t really about listening to the people.
Mere months ago, the city found that 84,600 Calgarians can’t currently afford their housing, and the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy reported that more than 115,000 Calgarians are at high risk of falling into homelessness. When housing is scarce — as it is now — housing costs climb for everyone, and a growing number of Calgarians are left behind.
The solution is clear: build more homes. Given Calgary’s legacy of urban sprawl, the solution is doubly clear: build more homes within our existing footprint.
If we restrict the redevelopment of single detached homes to only redevelop into larger, more expensive single detached homes, we will create a city exclusively for millionaires. The median assessed value of a new single-detached home is, right now, $1.6 million. This trajectory will exile future generations of Calgarians to the edges of the city, and incentivize long commutes from Okotoks, Airdrie and Cochrane. Calgary will lose its affordability advantage, becoming part wealthy enclave and part historical village. Think Heritage Park, but bigger and more expensive.
Alternatively, we can proceed with rezoning, encouraging local builders to create more attainable housing types. The median cost of a row house is $586,000. Housing is not cheap. But we can choose to rezone and make more attainable options possible. In a perfect world, we would build so much housing that housing costs stall or even start to decline.
These five councillors need to seriously think about the path they appear to be charting for the city as a whole. Their actions risk jeopardizing $228 million in funding pledged through the federal Housing Accelerator Fund as Calgarians dedicate a growing share of their income to rents and mortgage payments, with a growing share of us unable to make ends meet.
Do these councillors wish to campaign in the next election as dysfunctional gatekeepers, waging a cruel campaign against the housing needs of Calgarians? Or will they see the light and find the courage to make the hard decisions they were elected to make?
Kathryn Davies and Alex McColl are volunteers with More Neighbours Calgary, a grassroots, pro-housing organization, and advocates for municipal policies that support rather than restrict the building of homes in a growing city.
