Earlier this week, Calgary city council received an update from city administration on the city’s Home is Here housing strategy, which was approved in September 2023. At that time, administration called the strategy “groundwork for a comprehensive suite of actions to address the housing affordability amidst Alberta's population boom.” In the report, which is issued annually, administration said, "The strategy is enabling accelerated and deliberate action to unlock resources. These actions have resulted in short-term changes to housing supply and will influence long-term changes to housing affordability.” “The actions demonstrate the city's commitment to ensuring Calgary's reputation as a world-class city where everyone has an affordable place to call home." The city is leveraging its wholly-owned subsidiaries that focus on housing, including Calgary Housing, Attainable Homes Calgary, and Calgary Municipal Land Corporation, to develop and put into action programs covered in the strategy, added the report, “The collective actions to improve housing affordability for Calgarians are making a difference as we continue to work to close the housing supply gap." Councillors heard the city moved more than 25,000 new market-homes to the building permit stage in 2024, well above the annual average of 14,000 in past years..Additionally, 893 new non-market homes reached the development permit stage, well above permits issued in 2023, but well below the target of 3,000 permits per year, as outlined in the Home Is Here strategy. The report also said the city had achieved close to 95% of its three-year commitment to the former Liberal government’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF), in just one year after signing the agreement in November 2023. HAF launched with a pool of $4 billion and in its 2024 budget, the federal government allocated an additional $400 million in taxpayer money and launched the second round of funding announcements in January. When HAF was announced, 27 cities in Canada qualified for funds, including Calgary and Edmonton, which received $228.5 million and $175 million respectively. The agreements contained clauses for bonus money to be paid based on permits issued for multi-family homes, up to 10% of the value of the original agreements. Recently Calgary received $22,843,000 in bonus money, with Edmonton receiving $17,484,000. The HAF agreements also stipulated each city had to eliminate all areas of the cities that were zoned for only new single-family homes and allow multi-family home construction in those areas. .In its report on Tuesday, Calgary administration said townhomes, rowhouses and similar housing forms made up 43% (966 units) of all low-density development permit applications in 2024, up from just 28% in 2023. Additionally, 5,000 new secondary suites were registered and permitted in 2024, compared to less than 3,000 in 2023. With a record number of people moving to Calgary, primarily from Ontario and BC, from the mid-point of 2023 and all through 2024, Calgary’s land development and home building industries were on a record-setting construction pace. The city had the highest new home starts per capita in Canada in 2024 with 20,165 homes and also led all Canadian municipalities in housing starts in Q1 2025, while also accounting for 55% of all housing starts in Alberta. Even with the large numbers, Calgary’s administration said in its report the pressures on adding housing in the city continue. "Calgary continues to lead the country in population growth and the gap between the number of units coming online and the number of units needed is increasing, not decreasing, particularly for non-market housing,” said the report. “Furthermore, housing prices are at an all-time high and average market rents remain high.” .“For developers, inflation has decreased, but tariffs and geopolitical unrest are expected to increase the costs to build housing and thus the cost of living.” While significant milestones have been reached since the housing strategy was approved, more work remains to be done. "We are pulling on all levers and will continue to do more and do it faster, specifically in the areas of investment, advocacy and regulation," said the report. Areas that need attention and improvement include “streamlining planning processes to make them more development-friendly, continuing to advance approvals and implementation of local area plans, unlocking more city-owned land for housing, and using funding efficiently while advocating other orders of government for continued investment,” said the report.
