The City of Calgary’s controversial blanket upzoning bylaw is headed to the Dec. 15 meeting of city council, for a scheduled debate to have the bylaw repealed.
The decision was made on Monday by council’s executive committee approving a notice of motion by a vote of 13 to 2, with only Cllrs. Atkinson and Schmidt, both new to council, voting against.
The notice of motion was sponsored by Cllrs. Andre Chabot, Dan McLean, Kim Tyers, Rob Ward, Mike Jamieson, Landon Johnston and Mayor Jeromy Farkas, all of whom promised to repeal or change the bylaw during their election campaigns.
In a post on X, Farkas wrote, “I've sponsored a motion to repeal blanket rezoning and our Executive Committee has just approved sending it to full Council for debate. I'm committed to addressing blanket rezoning and replacing it with a community-driven approach, to restore certainty and build needed housing to support our growing city.”
Farkas did not elaborate on his vision of ‘a community-driven approach’ other than discussions are centred around a replacement policy to balance growth with concerns from Calgarians.
The original notice of motion was amended by the committee on Monday, which has directed city administration to prepare an amending bylaw to restore the land use bylaw districts in bylaw 1P2007 and the land use designation of affected parcels to their original state prior to third reading of the bylaw 21P2024 Citywide rezoning.
The motion would restore the previous land-use bylaw while protecting projects that already have permits approved or are under review.
The amending bylaw exempts parcels of land that: a: received a decision of approval on any one of development permit, subdivision or building permit under R-CG, R-G OR H-GO land use districts prior to the effective date of the amending bylaw, or b: are included in an application or permit submitted any of the development permit, subdivision, or c: have received approval of a land use redesignation by bylaw, through an applicant-initiated land use designation after August 6 2024.
Administration was also directed to bring back the amended bylaw direct to the March 2026 public hearing of council. Originally, the notice of motion was scheduled Feb. 17 2026 for the amended bylaw, but was changed after administration said the Feb 17 deadline did not supply adequate time to prepare the amended bylaw.
Blanket rezoning, which eliminated all areas of Calgary zoned for only single-family homes, gained notoriety from the day it was approved in May 2024.
During the largest public hearing in the city’s history, 7,000 Calgarians presented to council, either in person or through written submissions, with 70% saying they were against the bylaw.
Regardless, council approved it by a vote of 9 to 6, with evidence the vote was influenced by the federal Liberals’ Housing Accelerator Fund. A letter written to former Mayor Jyoti Gondek from Liberal Housing Minster Sean Fraser indicated Calgary would not receive $228.5 million of taxpayers’ money if blanket rezoning was not approved.
