Edmonton, as did Calgary and other Canadian cities, accepted taxpayers’ money from the former Liberal Government’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF,) which required accepting dictates to get the dough and qualify for bonus money over the life of the agreements. Calgary’s original HAF agreement was for a base amount of $228.5 million, while Edmonton’s base amount cheques will total $192 million over the course of its agreement. Each city is also receiving bonus money for the number of multi-family building permits issued. But no dough for single-family home buildingsOne of the dictates for receiving HAF money was eliminating all areas of the cities zoned solely for single-family homes and adding multi-family home buildings in those neighbourhoods. Buildings that would accommodate anywhere from four to 16 individual homes. .Of course, additional money flows into the cities’ coffers every year with multiple households paying property taxes on land where once only single households did. The majority of Calgarians and Edmontonians loudly expressed their disapproval of the new bylaws in public hearings but obviously, the cities' councillors thought the money was more important than voters’ wishes. But suddenly, along comes 2025, an election year in both cities, and there is a growing rethink on those councils. Edmonton’s city council will be debating changes to its bylaw at a meeting on June 30, and last week, three of the five candidates who have thrown their beanies into the bin to be Calgary’s next mayor announced repealing the blanket upzoning bylaw as a major plank in their platforms for the city’s municipal elections on Oct. 20. The three candidates are Sonya Sharp, Jeff Davison and Jeromy Farkas. Also in the running are incumbent Mayor Jyoti Gondek (independent) and former Calgary police commissioner Brian Thiesen (running as a member of The Better Calgary Party.) Neither Gondek nor Thiesen have issued statements or commented in their campaign literature about the blanket upzoning bylaw. .Sharp is running as a member of the Communities First Party which to date, has also fielded eight candidates for council, all of whom have made repealing blanket upzoning part of their platforms. “There is an abundance of red tape in how the city’s planning department operates. I twice brought forward proposals to cut it and both times, the mayor and this council’s majority rejected them because they were hellbent on bringing in blanket upzoning,” said Sharp. "Blanket upzoning, keep it or toss it, will be a major election issue this October.""Our Communities First candidates offer a clear and unambiguous position on it. Voters have a right to know where you stand on this before you ask them for your support.” Davison, running as an independent, is a former Calgary city councillor and sought the mayor’s chair in 2021. “Our city is in trouble and it’s time we do a full pivot. And that requires a serious culture shift on city council, where pet projects and infighting have left Calgarians in this present situation,” said Davison. “Instead of solutions, Calgarians are getting met with a divisive city council seeking a job promotion before they will fix the problems that they helped to create.” “When business owners in Marda Loop have to file a class-action lawsuit just to be heard and when communities are hosting information sessions about restrictive covenants as pushback to the tone-deaf blanket upzoning that this city council forced on the entire city, the system is clearly broken.” Farkas, also running as an independent, is also a former Calgary city councillor and a mayoral candidate in 2021. Farkas unveiled a 25-point housing plan last week, the first point being to repeal blanket upzoning, with a more targeted strategy that “supports gentle housing density.” “It’s very clear that this blanket upzoning, one-size-fits-all approach hasn’t worked. It hasn’t been able to build the homes at the scale or the speed or the price point that’s needed,” said Farkas. “We think that we can get more homes built more cost effectively and faster with that targeted approach.” .Interestingly, four councillors who incited the public’s wrath last year by voting in favour of blanket upzoning, Courtney Walcott, Gian-Carlo Carra, Evan Spenser and Jasmine Mian have announced they will not be running in the fall election. Coincidence? Councillors who voted against the bylaw who are seeking re-election include Terry Wong, Andre Chabot, Dan McLean and Sean Chu. Peter DeMong also voted against but is not running for office this year. Walcott couldn’t resist taking a parting shot at candidates who would repeal blanket upzoning. “Seeing prominent candidates and parties retreat to policies of exclusionary zoning, discrimination, and economic segregation under the guise of ‘progress’ and ‘compassion’ is painful,” Walcott wrote on social media. “Have some courage, it might just inspire people.” Because it took courage to go against the wishes of the people who put you on council? Yeah, that’s inspirational.
