Rental affordability crisis: How Calgary is moving forward

The time to act on Calgary’s housing crisis is now because it could take some time to find a solution, says the city’s Housing Affordability Task Force.

It adds everything comes down to supply – if Calgary wants rent to remain affordable, there needs to be more places to live — and there are some roadblocks in the city when it comes to building those places.

Tim Ward is the manager of housing solutions for the city and says its obvious housing is a problem.

“We are in a housing crisis. We have a deep need for affordable housing – 1 in 5 households in Calgary have a need for affordable housing,” he said.

He explains the first recommendation from the Housing and Affordability Task Force addresses steps that the city can take to make it easier to build a variety of types of housing in Calgary.

Ward says changing the way zoning laws work in the city could make a big difference.

“By changing the zoning requirements, we can at least give people the opportunity to create more housing,” he added.

Read more on Calgary’s rental affordability crisis: 

• Rental affordability crisis: How much has rent gone up in Calgary? 

• Rental affordability crisis: Why has rent gone up in Calgary? 

• Rental affordability crisis: How are Calgarians surviving? 

• Rental affordability crisis: Calgary Housing Company at capacity

The task force recommends that the city implement a new type of zoning for residential areas that would make it easier to build multi-family housing.

But it’s that recommendation that has become a sticking point for many city councillors who initially voted against the recommendations.

Some said that recommendation could cause sweeping changes that some communities aren’t prepared for.

“That obviously comes with change and the task force recognized that and so I think that’s certainly the conversation to be had, is neighbourhoods will see change if these recommendations are implemented but I think it will be more positive in the long term in terms of the vibrancy of neighbourhoods and the amenities that come to neighbourhoods as a result,” said Ward.

Council is now set to go forward and make sure they get it right.

“This is the start of the process, and it would require extreme vetting moving forward and this spells out — this gives us the opportunity to do that,” Coun. Gian Carlo Carra said during a meeting.

Following the reconsideration, council has said it will be moving forward with the recommendations slowly to investigate how the zoning changes would affect Calgarians.

This is the final piece in a five-story series by CityNews on rent affordability in Calgary which examined how the rising cost of housing is impacting Calgary and what is being done to address the problem.