August 6, 2024 - Citywide zoning changes are now in effect

On May 14, 2024 Council approved citywide rezoning to a base residential district with amendments. Visit calgary.ca/RezoningforHousing for more info.

We’re planning and building our city now to ensure we remain a place where home is sustainable, diverse, accessible, equitable and liveable for everyone. We need to act now as we are quickly approaching a population of two million Calgarians.

Current initiatives include:

• Home is Here: The City of Calgary’s Housing Strategy: This strategy aspires to ensure that everyone living in Calgary has an affordable place to call home.
• City Building Program: This program of work, which includes the Calgary Plan, Zoning Bylaw, and Street Manual, will set the forward-looking direction, and provide clear and user-friendly policy and regulation for The City and our partners to guide growth, mobility, land-use and development citywide.
• Rezoning for Housing: As part of the Home is Here: The City of Calgary’s Housing Strategy this work will present to Council a proposal to rezone low-density residential areas to a base residential district that supports more housing options and improves affordability in all communities.

Learn more and get involved in these current initiatives focused on supporting the ongoing planning and building of our city.

A local area plan sets the vision for growth and change in a group of communities over the next 30+ years. A local area plan provides guidance and direction on development, investment and community improvements that residents, landowners, builders/developers, City Planners and Councillors can commonly refer to when new ideas are proposed for the area.

A local area plan will support your community as it changes by:

• Increasing predictability about how the area could change in the future.
• Responding to changing trends and demographics such as population decline, family composition, aging in place, housing preferences.
• Expanding housing choice to welcome additional people and increase population.
• Supporting local amenities and businesses through increased population.
• Informing decisions about reinvestment such as improvements to public spaces.
• Adding more homes, increasing bikeability, walkability and access to amenities and transit, as well as reducing the need to expand our city’s footprint all play a role in environmental sustainability.

Communities naturally change and evolve. Over time, trees and kids grow up, businesses change ownership and offerings, homes and buildings age. People choose to move, renovate or rebuild their homes or businesses to better suit their changing needs.

There is a stage in each community's life cycle when the choice to rebuild or redevelop homes and buildings becomes more and more frequent (generally as homes and buildings reach 50+ years). A lot of change within a short time can start to feel unpredictable or overwhelming. It's at this stage where it can be helpful to have a plan in place to guide decisions about how and where change, new development and community investment and improvements make sense in communities.

Creating a plan to help guide change within communities ensures that there's flexibility (for people looking to make changes), direction (to help guide new development when ideas are proposed), and certainty (for residents to know how their community may change in the future).

We're working together to create a local area plan to help ensure change happens in the right ways in the West Elbow Communities.

Life cycle of a community

New communities tend to draw many young families and typically reach their peak population within the first 20 years.

Population begins to decline as children begin to move away from home.

Homes and buildings age and the population continues to drop or flatline. Schools and businesses often struggle to stay open.

The community is revitalized through private redevelopment and public reinvestment, bringing increased population growth and enabling local businesses and amenities to thrive.

The West Elbow Communities Local Area Planning project includes the communities of: Altadore, Bankview, Cliff Bungalow, Elbow Park, Erlton, Garrison Woods, Lower Mount Royal, Mission, North Glenmore Park (north of Glenmore Trail SW), Richmond (east of Crowchild Trail SW), Rideau Park, Roxboro, Scarboro (east of Crowchild Trail SW), South Calgary, Sunalta, and Upper Mount Royal.

Why is the West Village no longer part of the West Elbow Communities Local Area Plan?

The West Village will be incorporated into the Greater Downtown as part of the revised Calgary Plan. This will allow the area to be better integrated with the Greater Downtown, as it relates to the river pathway and open space system, and other downtown related initiatives.

A local area plan sets the vision for the evolution of the area over the next 30 years. It provides direction on future development and investment that residents, landowners, builders/developers, City Planners and Council can commonly refer to when new development and investment ideas are proposed.

The city, communities and streets where we live and work have changed, are changing, and will continue to change. People renovate, rebuild, enlarge and modify spaces around them all the time. We need to make sure there’s room for people looking to make changes and provide direction to help guide decisions. We also need to provide guidelines for investment when change is proposed, and certainty for residents and businesses to know how their community may change in the future.

While Calgary’s population has been growing approximately 1.8 per cent every year since 1985, the peak population within 86 per cent of Calgary’s established communities has declined.

Population stability within established communities is essential to support local schools, businesses, services, amenities and infrastructure. Greater housing choice and diversity supports increased population and stabilization within Calgary’s established communities and ensures people can stay in their communities longer.

Expanding the types of homes that can be built is a great way to improve housing choice in a community naturally over time – in turn supporting population and community stability.

Feedback provided by participants helps shape the local area plan as it is created.

Input provided by participants helps the project team understand perspectives, opinions and concerns throughout all phases of the project. Input collected in each phase of the project helps influence and inform the concepts and policies that are created and refined throughout the process. Throughout the project, the project team will share what was heard, highlighted the key themes raised, and provided responses for how key themes were addressed and considered.

Although it would be a great outcome, the goal of public engagement is not to reach consensus or make everyone happy. Public engagement is about considering the input, ideas and perspectives of those who are interested in or impacted by decisions, before decisions are made. Participant input is an important part of local area planning, but is one of many areas of consideration. Other areas include: City policies, professional expertise, current context and trends, and equity which all factor into the ultimate decision-making process and concept development.

Public input provided in each phase of the engagement process is compiled, reviewed and considered as each chapter of the local area plan is created.