Approval of Calgary housing strategy just the beginning: advocates

Calgarians are rejoicing this week after councillors made a major step forward in addressing the housing crisis.

After days of public consultation, which included many heartbreaking stories from Calgarians, councillors finally voted in favour of a housing strategy, with a final vote of 12-3.

The city says the strategy will have a profound impact on the crisis, with Mayor Jyoti Gondek saying Calgary’s now on track to create 3,000 new non-market homes, with an additional 1,000 market homes per year.

This is expected to be done through strategies such as the $10,000 secondary suite initiative, which Gondek says will lead to the development of at least 400 more secondary suites.

Elizabeth McLennan with the Calgary Alliance for Common Good said a couple other specifics will be especially impactful.

“Mayor Gondek allocated $25 million for student housing and also directed that two city lots be used to set up temporary housing for people who are homeless,” she said,

And, this is just the beginning, according to the advocate.

“We just can’t wait any longer to have affordable housing in this city. So while the vote was marvelous, it didn’t build houses,” McLennan said. “Now, we have to see the implementation of all those actions that were in the recommendations.”

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Kathryn Davies with the More Neighbours Calgary affordable housing advocacy group agrees the decision is a big win for Calgary, but there’s still a lot more work to do, more specifically, around zoning reform.

“And that is by far the most controversial one — it almost sunk the recommendations the first time around and I don’t think it’s going to be smooth sailing for that going forward,” she said. “There’s so much resistance to neighbourhood change, people like their neighbourhoods the way they are.”

She adds that there wasn’t always hope the right decision would be made.

“I can’t tell you how happy I was about this. I didn’t expect the vote to go the way it did,” Davies said. “We heard some very challenging stories and I think maybe city council didn’t realize until this public hearing just how high the stakes are.”

Even though this is a major step, houses are still getting pricier in Calgary by the minute.

Between July and August, the average cost of a home shot up by $2,500 in the city, the highest increase reported out of the 10 major Canadian cities surveyed by RateHub.ca.

The city says it will report to the Community Development Committee annually with updates on the implementation of the strategy.