City-Wide Growth Strategy

Since 2016, The City has been working to reduce barriers to redevelopment by addressing the costs of redevelopment, utility infrastructure capacity, financial tools, policy alignment and application processes. A scoping report to formally initiate the Established Areas Growth and Change Strategy​ was approved by Council in 2018 September, an update report was delivered in May 2019, and the Phase 1 report with recommendations was delivered to Priorities and Finance Committee on April 29, 2020. A link to the reports are included below. This strategy is meant to support growth and change in existing communities in Calgary. Through this strategy, The City can better coordinate public investment while supporting existing communities through their lifecycle growth and change, linking existing policy and current policy efforts and support developers in helping build the city that is envisioned in the MDP/CTP.

• September 2018 Scoping Report
• May 2019 Project update report
• April 29, 2020 ​Phase 1 recommendations report​​

Contact
Lesley Kalmakoff​
Senior Growth Management Planner
Lesley.Kalmakoff@calgary.ca
403-268-3261​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Industrial Growth Strategy has a short-term and long-term view to support economic diversification and identify strategies that continue to support industrial development in Calgary. This will be done by developing strategies that support the industrial sector’s prosperity and strengthen Calgary’s position as an inland port. The focus of work in 2020 will be to deliver a scoping report in Q4, an update on industrial land supply and development activities, and link to other corporate priorities benefitting or impacting the Industrial sector. Industrial Strategy will form part of the comprehensive city wide growth strategy and will also link with city-wide policy planning, the Off-Site Levy Bylaw Review, funding and financing tools that arise as part of the Established Area Growth and Change Strategy (EAGCS) work program, and New Community Growth Strategy and other city wide initiatives.

Contact
Abdul Jaffari
Senior Growth Management Planner
Abdul.Jaffari@calgary.ca​
403-268-8976​​​​​​​​

The New Community Growth Strategy seeks to enable strategic growth in new community areas by aligning planning policy, market demand, infrastructure and servicing needs, and City budgets. In 2018, a framework for strategic growth decision making was built, with recommendations brought forward to Council. The result was an approved portfolio of investments for 14 new communities and 27 actively developing communities for inclusion in the One Calgary (2019-2022) service plan and budget. This represents an approximate $537 million investment in 2019-2022.

As outlined in the 2018 March Council report PFC2018-0200, funding considerations for new community business cases will be considered on a two year cycle in alignment with the beginning and mid-cycle of the four year budget timeframe. Establishing a two year evaluation cycle provides certainty in process, with enough flexibility to meet market demand while allowing The City to consider financial impacts at budget time.

New Community Growth Strategy 2020 Evaluation Details (Updated 2019 December 12)

Council provided clarity on the process for the New Community Growth Strategy 2020 through the 2019 Growth Monitoring Report PFC2019-1062 (Item 7.12) in 2019 November.

Through this report, Council approved a modification to the established process of regularly receiving business cases for new communities that recognizes The City of Calgary's current economic constraints.

As part of the modified process, proponents must first submit proposals that demonstrate how their business case area will meet the following criteria:

1. No required capital costs from The City of Calgary to initiate development;
2. No required operating costs in the current One Calgary (2019-2022) budget or the next (2023-2026) budget cycle, without a proposed mitigating solution, that does not include tax and utility rate increases using the existing model and any improvements made by the date of review;
3. Completing areas of previously approved communities and leveraging capital investments already made in 2018 and prior years;
4. Property tax generation potential; and
5. Levy generation potential that funds new and established areas.

Below is a schedule of key dates for the 2020 evaluation cycle (subject to change).

Contact
Shawn Small
Senior Growth Management Planner
Shawn.Small@calgary.ca
403-268-5914​​​​​​​​​​