Calgary seeing more housing one year after blanket rezoning approval

About a year since it was brought in, blanket rezoning is ushering in not only significant increases in housing supply in Calgary but also more diverse types of homes, according to a new city report.

But some residents of Bowness, one of the communities in the city seeing a lot of development, still aren’t fans of it.

“It’s been a challenge,” said Marc Dennis, who has lived in Bowness for six years but plans to leave the community this summer. “We can’t afford to buy any houses here, everything else is getting bought up and made [into what you see behind you.”

While Calgary sees its housing stock increase while prices go down, for Dennis, he says he’s being priced out of his community. 

“It sucks, Bowness is fantastic, great community presence,” he said. “We’ve dealt with floods, we’ve dealt with water shutoffs; it’s a fantastic community to live in because we got each others backs, except when it comes to affordable housing.”

Blanket rezoning sparked Calgary’s largest public hearing. Council approved the policy in May 2024.

It was implemented in August of that year.

According to the city, in the first quarter of 2025, Calgary saw a 59 per cent increase in development applications for new homes in established areas compared to the same time last year, with a triple digit increase in row and townhomes making up those applications.

Dave Swerhone, who has lived in Bowness for 34 years, says his opinion on blanket rezoning hasn’t changed one year in. But he says parking has, with fewer spaces.

But, that’s not his only complaint.

“It’s parking, just building these huge monster tall houses and I think that one has a deck on top so people are up there, so your privacy — everything has changed,” he said.

But as more people move to Calgary, some within the communities where blanket rezoning is having an effect say while not perfect, it is providing more roofs in our city.

“I’m not so much focused on rezoning ‘yes or no’ I think that we need the housing, I just would like to see there be some improvements that make it more sensitive and appropriate to the context that it is in,” said 10-year Bowness resident Alastair Pollock.