Repealing citywide rezoning was a major campaign promise of most newly elected Calgary city councilors.
Jeromy Farkas, the city's mayor-elect, said the pledge is a priority, but it must include a plan to replace the controversial policy.
“We're going to start the first conversations about the mechanics of this with the new city council,” Farkas said at a news conference outside City Hall on Tuesday. “But it’s also really important to focus on the replacement approach.”
The City Council approved a plan to change the city's standard residential zoning in May 2024 after the longest public hearing in the city's history, with more than 730 people speaking. The majority opposed this idea.
The move meant that Calgary's land use bylaw was amended to make residential zoning zoning (R-CG) the default residential zoning district across the city. The changes came into effect in August of that year.
R-CG allows for the construction of a variety of housing types, including single-family, two-family, duplexes and row houses.
The move was a key recommendation and one of more than 80 housing strategies in the city aimed at increasing the supply and increasing affordability of housing.
Calgarians for Smart Growth, a group formed in opposition to the policy, said it is “cautiously optimistic” about the next city council's ability to work together to reverse the citywide rezoning.
“If you asked any of the elected councilors what issues they heard on their doorstep, one of them would be a complete rezoning,” said Robert Lehody of Calgarians for Smart Growth.
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“I hope they are willing to try to find a different way to work with communities to find solutions to densification in a smart and thoughtful way.”
Including Farkas, most members of the new city council promised in their campaign literature to repeal the citywide rezoning.
The move was included in the party's Communities First platform, which elected four candidates Monday: Kim Tires in District 1, Andre Chabot in District 10, Rob Ward in District 11 and Dan McLean in District 13.
The Better Calgary Party also vowed to repeal the policy, and Ward 12's Mike Jamieson was the only party candidate elected.
Independent councilors-elect John Pantazopoulos in Ward 6 and Landon Johnston in Ward 14 also campaigned on a promise to overturn the decision.
“Almost everyone said they would repeal it or make sweeping changes to it,” McLean told Global News on Tuesday.
“That’s still my number one priority—I want the complete rezoning to be overturned.”
However, not everyone elected to the council agrees with repealing the policy.
Nathaniel Schmidt, the elected councilman in Ward 8, said he has made it clear he does not support repeal and would prefer to amend the city's zoning policies rather than start from scratch.
“We have to start by listening to each other as a council, listening to our constituents and finding a path forward that is mutually beneficial because we are going to grow to two million people together,” Schmidt said.
“That's the perspective we need.”
According to the Calgary Inner City Builders Association (CICBA), the city's zoning change has reduced the construction time of a typical townhouse by six months, saving $90,000.
Shamir Gaidhar, chairman of the CICBA, said the city's redevelopment processes and timelines “didn't work” before the citywide rezoning policy was adopted, and fears problems would arise if it were overturned.
“At one end of the spectrum it didn't work, now we're at the other end of the spectrum and they're saying it doesn't work,” Gaidhar said.
“Instead of canceling, why don't we find solutions? Why don't we get some people from the community and some people from industry together and talk about the problems?”
It may be some time before the cancellation process can even begin.
Overturning the citywide rezoning would require an advertising period, another public hearing and debate before approval.
The new City Council is currently undergoing orientation ahead of its official swearing-in on Oct. 29.
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