What's at Stake on September 14?
Legalizing more housing variety and removing parking minimums are hot-button issues, but they are critical to the success of the Housing Strategy.
Howdy Neighbour!
Two weeks from today, The City of Calgary’s Housing Affordability Task Force recommendations will return to city hall to be put to a vote.
In case you missed it, these recommendations achieved some notoriety this past June when they were first presented to Calgary City Council. On June 6, council voted 7-8 against adopting the recommendations. Some weak justifications were made for the rejection, including classic delay tactics of needing more public engagement and further due diligence.
Keen-eyed observers of Calgary civic affairs noted that it was an odd choice to commission a task force composed of experts on housing affordability, give them a mandate to conduct research and return with specific policy solutions, and subsequently reject the findings while the city is in the midst of a fairly acute housing crisis. The public backlash was swift and ferocious as national media, community leaders, housing advocates, everyday constituents and even federal politicians from both sides of the aisle took to social media and the phone lines to express their dismay and anger at the decision.
The following day in a continuation of the previous day’s meeting, a chastened Council revisited the vote and decided to give the recommendations another chance by rolling them into the broader Housing Strategy and subjecting them to a future public hearing. This time the motion passed 14-1.
Our worry for the September 14 meeting is that councillors will attempt to water down or eliminate the more contentious portions of the strategy. We cannot let that happen.
Homes like this are a rare sight throughout Calgary, because our zoning laws have made them illegal in most of the city.
More Homes and Less Restrictive Parking
At particular risk are a couple of key actions under Recommendation 1 related to loosening Calgary’s extremely restrictive zoning. Currently over 60% of Calgary residential land is zoned R-1, a zoning type which permits only a single-detached home to be built. Action 1D recommends legalizing a wider variety of housing types permitted city-wide, including semi-detached, row and townhouses, as well as secondary suites and backyard suites. Action 1E suggests removing minimum parking requirements.
If you’ve ever attended a public hearing where row-houses are debated, you’ll know that there is deeply entrenched opposition to both housing diversity, and any perceived threat to abundant free parking.
More Neighbours Calgary knows that there is no single silver bullet to address the housing crisis; we need the multi-pronged approach contained in the Housing Strategy to implement real change.
We also know that changes to zoning and parking reform are the linchpins of the recommendations, and without these two pieces in place, the rest of the recommendations will lack teeth or be effectively impossible to implement. Without flexibility in zoning and parking, we’ll never see enough housing built to meet the needs of a growing city.
This is why we are asking Calgarians who truly care about housing affordability to speak up in favour of all of the task force recommendations, including ones that may be controversial.
We hope to see and hear you on September 14!