Upcoming Local Area Plan Events and Deadlines
Make sure your voice is heard and that Calgary continues to support having more neighbours through these guiding area plans!
Upcoming Dates
Phase 2 of the West Elbow Communities Local Area Plan
In-person Engagement Session June 12, 2024 at 6 p.m.Virtual Engagement Session Tuesday, June 18, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Phase 3 of the South Shaganappi Local Area Plan
In-person Engagement Session TONIGHT, June 13, 2024 at 8pm.
Virtual Engagement Session Tuesday, 18 June, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Phase 3 of the Chinook Communities Local Area Plan
Virtual Engagement Session Thursday, June 20, 2024 at 7:00 p.m.
Phase 4 of the Greater Forest Lawn Local Area Plan
Public Hearing of Council in Fall 2024
Phase 4 of the Riley Communities Local Area Plan
Public Hearing of the Infrastructure and Planning Committee in Fall 2024
You can submit comments any time through the Engage portal linked for each plan.
So what are Local Area Plans anyway?
Many TLAs (Three-Letter Acronyms) reigned during the Rezoning for Housing Public Hearing — we heard a lot about the “LAP” perhaps almost as often as R-CG itself. The Local Area Planning process, which replaced neighbourhood-specific redevelopment plans in 2018, is the interface between citywide planning goals and the local contexts and understanding of residents living in a particular area.
LAPs group together several geographically contiguous neighbourhoods to form a “Local Area” — for example, the North Hill Local Area roughly draws a triangle between Renfrew, Capitol Hill, and Highland Park. While LAPs establish recommendations for land uses and heights, they do not proactively rezone or permit developments.
The documents are merely non-binding treaties between communities and planners, detailing what kinds of development are deemed acceptable in what parts of the community. LAPs are cross-referenced in Land-Use Redesignations and Development Permits as they pass through City Administration and Council. Policymakers and developers are influenced by LAPs as they make decisions, but are not ultimately obliged to follow them, nor are community members assumed to be happy with them, or their outcomes.
LAPs have crawled across the city from the centre outward, and are currently in progress in 5 areas: the Greater Forest Lawn Area, the Riley Area, the Chinook Area, the South Shaganappi Area, and the West Elbow Area — if you have a stake in these communities, whether you live there, work there, enjoy amenities or the company of friends there, or just simply want to see the city meet its policy goals through these planning programs, you are entitled to share your opinion on the future development of these areas.
Envisioned to guide development over a 30-year period, LAPs are a fantastic opportunity to engage and educate community members about city building, and the responsibilities we all have to ensure the sustainable, equitable, and vibrant development of our communities. They are also weaponized to misinform about the supposed consequences of denser residential development, and award preferential treatment to communities who wish to preserve themselves in a geography of exclusion and privilege.
When LAPs are done correctly, they are the seed of a blossoming community, recognizing its strengths and weaknesses, and identifying its most opportune locations for the development of residences, amenities, businesses, and accessible mobility upgrades.
When done incorrectly, they are carefully calibrated to preserve real estate as a speculative commodity, prevent the organic growth of neighbourhoods, and indirectly decide what kinds of people are allowed to live where.
Almost 15 years ago our city codified an agreement that for every new resident in what then was called the “Developing Area” — west of Sarcee, Southeast of Stoney and Deerfoot, and North of the Airport — we’d have to find a way to integrate a resident into an established community. By 2076 we’ll look back at the last 60 years and hope to have achieved a 50/50 split — currently, we’re looking back at the last 20 years, trying to pick up the pace as about 7 times as many residents have settled outside the area than within.
Why is your feedback important?
Our LAPs have the potential to direct the flows of change at a finer grain, but they’re for nothing if they fail to fit into the broader picture of sustainable, affordable growth in Calgary. Our LAPs will fail to produce a better city if they prioritize the mummification of neighbourhoods’ built-form, over progressive reforms. If they enforce that we cannot create opportunities for people to live where they may occasionally block a view of the mountains for the comfortably-housed.
As hundreds of thousands of new Calgarians look for places to settle within our established communities, we must ensure there’s room for them. Restricting denser residential development to where deemed “acceptable” by the most privileged and entitled will only serve to accelerate disparities in these communities’ overly competitive and speculative housing markets.
Over the next few weeks, you’ll have ample opportunity to speak directly with planners about your LAP, and challenge them to ensure it acts toward your goals for a more inclusive, flexible, and vibrant Calgary. You’ll have the opportunity to do so with friends at your side from More Neighbours Calgary, using our voice to challenge the status-quo, and achieve housing abundance in Calgary.
Join our Discord server to connect with us ahead of time, and get prepared to speak with confidence! LAPs are filled with jargon, and sneaky terms whose consequences are not always immediately obvious.
That’s why we’re working hard this summer to ensure you have the opportunity to learn the ropes and make yourself heard.