City-Wide Zoning - Where We Are

Starting today, March 23, Council will hold a public hearing on whether to repeal Calgary’s city‑wide inclusionary zoning.

But this conversation isn’t really just about zoning.

At its core, it’s about how we experience change as a city — what gets built around us, how decisions are made, whether growth feels fair, and whether we’re getting good value for the resources we contribute.

Many residents have heard that there’s a public hearing about zoning, but haven’t followed how we got here or what’s really being decided. This is my attempt to lay that out clearly.

Calgary is growing at a pace few of us could have predicted.

We’re now a city of roughly 1.6 million people, and if current trends continue, we are on track to approach two million residents within the next decade. That kind of growth brings opportunity — but it also brings real pressure and real change to our neighbourhoods, infrastructure, and housing market.

One of the clearest impacts of rapid growth is the need for more housing.

Over time, our housing supply has not kept pace with demand. The result is an affordability crisis that is now affecting a wide range of Calgarians.

According to the City of Calgary’s most recent Housing Needs Assessment:

• 84,600 households — nearly 1 in 5 Calgary households — cannot afford the home they live in
• Average market rents now require an annual household income of roughly $84,000 to be considered affordable
• The number of households in housing need has steadily increased alongside population growth

This isn’t an abstract problem. It affects seniors, young families, renters, people trying to buy their first home, and people who have lived in their communities for decades.

For decades, Calgary’s primary way of accommodating growth has been to push outward and build new communities on the city’s edges.

As a result, Calgary now covers a geographic footprint comparable in size to New York City, but with far fewer people. That pattern of growth has required us to continually build new roads, pipes, recreation facilities, transit, and utilities — all of which must be operated, maintained, and eventually replaced.

Calgary’s low density means it has the most kilometres of pipe per resident of any major Canadian city. Every new kilometer of pipe or road added on the outskirts increases long‑term costs. These are costs that all Calgarians share.

When that infrastructure was new, this approach felt manageable.

Today, time is catching up with us. 

We are witnessing some of Calgary’s infrastructure reaching the end of its useful life, and the cost of repairing and replacing it is significant.

We are in the midst of another round of water restrictions due to catastrophic breaks of the Bearspaw feeder main. In addition, we have a vast network of pipes, roads, bridges, and facilities that must be maintained for a city with a very large footprint

A recent City report estimates that Calgary needs to spend nearly $49 billion over the next decade — including water mains, roads, transit, and facilities. This includes billions just to address roughly 11% of city-owned assets that are in poor or very poor condition.

Prior to the city-wide changes, each individual land use application to “missing middle density housing” required a public hearing. Of those, roughly 95% of residential land‑use redesignations that came to Council were approved — at an estimated cost of $1.275 million for those public hearings.

The city‑wide inclusionary zoning changes were introduced by the previous Council (before I was elected) as part of Calgary’s Housing Strategy, following the longest public hearing in the city’s history.

Those changes also made Calgary eligible for up to $861 million in federal funding — which was tied to inclusionary zoning, and is now at risk.

As I’ve outlined above, the issue has never been about whether housing should be built — it was how much cost, delay, and conflict we were adding along the way. 

Through knocking on doors and hosting multiple Ward 8 Open Houses, I've heard clearly that the zoning changes unearthed and amplified real problems, including:

• Infrastructure and amenities not keeping pace with development
• A lack of distinctly affordable housing options
• Design quality and neighbourhood fit
• More crowded on-street parking
• Uneven distribution of change
• Heritage and tree canopy preservation concerns
• Improper construction practices and weak enforcement
• Engagement that feels late or one‑sided

These concerns are real. And they are solvable.

The public hearing starting today, March 23 — focuses only on repealing the zoning, without including replacements or solutions that would address the concerns and growth challenges.

Procedurally, here’s the problem:

• Council has launched a major public hearing asking residents to participate in a lengthy and emotional process without a replacement solution on the table
• If repeal passes, Council must start again from the beginning to address the challenges presented by growth (and potentially requalify for federal funding) — meaning another full public hearing will almost certainly be required to implement meaningful improvements
• A planned 25‑year update to the Land Use Bylaw, expected by Q2 2027, will also require a public hearing
• The path we’ve created makes it very likely that we’ll have multiple large hearings that could address the same fundamental questions

This is an inefficient way to make policy, places an unreasonable burden on the public, and risks undermining confidence in the process itself.

I voted against the initial motion to take this approach.

Not because improvements aren’t needed — they are — but because repealing without addressing the underlying challenges with amendments, ideas, or direction for Administration moves us away from being solutions-focused and toward a binary decision that fails to reflect the complexity of what Calgarians are experiencing.

Given our continuous population growth, stretched infrastructure, deteriorating affordability, and costly processes, I don’t think that’s the best question we could have asked. But, it’s the question that’s before us.

I now go into this public hearing with an open mind on the question of whether to repeal the city-wide zoning changes, or keep them in place.

I also go into this public hearing with a belief that we can take a more future-focused approach. 

As Calgary grows, most of us want the same things:

• A city that is affordable for current and future residents
• Infrastructure and services that are safe and reliable
• Homes to live in, in communities that we love
• Processes that are understandable, enforceable, and fair
• Good value for the money we all contribute

To get there, we need to tackle several challenges at once:

1. Building enough housing supply to keep up with demand so prices don’t continue to climb.
2. Accommodating growth in a way that maximizes value for money, prioritizing repair of aging infrastructure and limiting unnecessary expansion of new infrastructure.
3. Ensuring redevelopment in established neighbourhoods comes with benefits, and that processes feel fair, contextual, and trustworthy.
4. Maintaining eligibility for the $861 million in federal funding, which is at risk if zoning is repealed without a replacement.
5. Engaging Calgarians through a clear, reasonable process that addresses these issues together as a whole — not repeatedly through binary, emotionally charged debates.

Starting today, Council will listen, learn, and then vote on whether to repeal city‑wide inclusionary zoning. What comes next is still uncertain.

My goal is to ensure that we:

1. Come out of the public hearing with a clear, solutions‑focused process forward — not a cycle of repeated public hearings on the same issue
2. Seek replacement options that maintain eligibility for federal housing funding, recognizing that while Council can’t vote on land use changes based on financial outcomes, we can flip the narrative from being opposed to zoning and into being for solutions
3. Address how neighbours experience redevelopment so we end up with high‑quality buildings that fit their context
4. Enable enough housing supply to keep pace with growth and protect affordability
5. Ensure communities see the benefits of maintained and upgraded infrastructure and amenities alongside redevelopment

As the public hearing begins, I want to be clear about one thing: your participation still matters. Whether you are strongly in favour, strongly opposed, or somewhere in between, Council benefits from hearing directly from residents about how growth, housing, and change are being experienced on the ground.

The public hearing is likely to last multiple days. There are several ways to take part, and you do not need to navigate the process perfectly for your voice to be heard.

Residents can participate by speaking either in person at Council Chambers or remotely by phone. Speakers are organized into panels in order to track your relative speaking position. Once your panel is called, each speaker is given up to five minutes to share their perspective. Members of Council may ask questions after each panel.

• Registering to speak: Registration is handled through the City Clerk’s Office at calgary.ca/publicsubmissions. You can register in advance online, or register in person at the Municipal Building Atrium.
• Remote participation: If you register to speak remotely, you will receive instructions from the City Clerk’s Office with a phone number to call when your panel is scheduled.

Public hearings can run long and schedules can shift. If you miss your panel when it is first called, you do not need to re‑register. The Chair will periodically call for speakers who missed their turn to come forward later in the hearing. Being available and staying engaged increases the chance you will be able to add your voice.

While the deadline for submission to be included in the public record has passed, my office will continue to monitor emails and record responses sent to ward8@calgary.ca. 

You can follow the public hearing live online at calgary.ca/watchlive, track panels and progress through the public agenda, or attend in person to observe. The public hearing may span multiple days, and Council will continue listening throughout the process.

Sincerely,
Nathaniel Schmidt
City of Calgary Ward 8 Councillor 
Calgary.ca/Ward8