Citywide rezoning debate and decision not likely until after Easter: Calgary mayor

A public hearing into whether Calgary city council should repeal citywide rezoning has entered its second week, but the city’s mayor believes a debate on the matter will likely continue into next week.

That’s due in part to city council’s schedule this week, which includes regularly-scheduled council and committee meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as a stat holiday on Good Friday.

That’s left just two days this week for council to complete the public hearing, ask questions of administration and then debate the policy.

Alex Williams, a member of the Calgary Transit Riders advocacy group, waited six days for his turn to speak to council.

Williams spoke in favour of keeping citywide rezoning as Calgary needs “a lot of different options” when it comes to housing.

“Transit-oriented development isn’t going to solve all of our issues, neither is R-CG (Residential Grade-oriented Infill District),” Williams told Global News.

“But we need to make use of both of these things if we want a strong, robust transit system and something that works for Calgarians.”

Citywide rezoning saw the city’s default residential zoning district changed to R-CG back in August 2024, which allowed for a variety of housing types to be developed on a single property like rowhouses and townhomes.

The policy change was aimed at boosting the supply and affordability of housing in the city.

Get breaking National news

Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won’t miss a trending story.

However, the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) argued Monday the policy hasn’t achieved either.

CREB’s chief economist Ann-Marie Lurie urged city council to take time to repeal and reset the city’s planning moving forward, including the use of Local Area Plans to determine where density is appropriate.

“Just plan out what that existing community might look like, similar to when you go into a brand new community, you know exactly what is around you,” she told reporters. “How can we create that same sort of thing in existing communities?”

As of Monday morning, city officials confirmed a total of 526 people had signed up to speak on whether or not council should repeal citywide rezoning.

It’s less than half of the more than 1,100 Calgarians who signed up to speak during the historic public hearing in April 2024, when the policy was enacted.

Just 736 of that total spoke to council over 15 days, with the majority of them opposed to blanket rezoning.

Lori Williams, an associate professor of policy studies at Mount-Royal University, said the lower number of public speakers could be a result of city council indicating they’d be in favour of repealing the policy.

“They want to find, it sounds like, a more nuanced policy that allows for increasing housing without dramatically changing the character of neighbourhoods or streets,” Williams told Global News.

“Perhaps that has diminished some of the passion that was associated with this in the past.”

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said he remains “amenable to persuasion” but hopes to begin debate this week.

“I think Calgarians want to see a resolution to this thing, to get this done sooner rather than later, and I agree with them,” McLean said.

His comments come after a back-and-forth on social media this weekend between Calgary mayor Jeromy Farkas and Ward 14 Coun. Landon Johnston over Farkas’ desire to wait until after Easter to begin debate.

“I can tell you I have gone through the submissions and people want us to vote on this without delay,” Johnston wrote in a social media post Friday.

When asked about the upcoming debate Monday, Farkas said he “will not cut corners on the public hearing.”

“We’re in the home stretch but we have more and more people signing up tp speak, which I think is a great thing,” Farkas said.

“I know that some people would like us to really get to a decision but we can’t start on that until we’ve heard from absolutely everyone who wants to speak.”

If city council approves the citywide rezoning repeal, city administration said the changes won’t take effect until Aug. 4, 2026.