Development in Calgary--let's start with the facts

I write a regular column in the Calgary Herald. Here is the full text of my March story: 

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the future growth of the city. It’s important that we have these sorts of discussions, but also that they are based on fact.

And the facts are that the future nature of development in Calgary is slowly changing. But this does not mean that there is a “suburban development freeze,” or that there is somehow a war on the suburbs, or that your council hates single-family homes.

For many years, more than 100 per cent of the city’s growth took place in new fringe developments. Even in years of extreme growth, most existing neighbourhoods lost population. We were slowly hollowing out our city from the middle.

Much of this was driven by wrong-headed policies. Each home in a new community costs about $30,000 in additional infrastructure (e.g., roads, fire halls, buses, major water pipes). Prior to 2011, only a fraction of that was being covered through development levies, leaving the rest to be paid by all taxpayers.

At the same time, red tape and an inefficient process for working with neighbours made it much more difficult to sensitively redevelop existing neighbourhoods and areas around LRT stations.

More thoughtful regulation on the part of the city — halving the subsidy on new growth by increasing the development levy and beginning the process of cutting red tape — has begun to slowly shift the market toward more housing choices throughout the city. But our forecast for the next five years still shows about 94 per cent of all of our growth will happen in new areas of the city.

Hardly a “suburban development freeze.”

Yet, some folks have been muttering darkly that there is no land for new development. This is not true. Today, there are some 22 square kilometres — or about six neighbourhoods the size of Auburn Bay — in vacant, serviced land (with water and sewer pipes) around the city. We believe that there is room for at least 150,000 people on this land. Taking all planned land (serviced and not) into account takes this number up to 300,000. And with PlanIt as our development guide, it means those new communities will have a variety of housing options and be the vibrant and livable communities Calgarians want.

Furthermore, the home building industry in Calgary is very healthy. New home construction in 2012 was up 38 per cent over 2011. Calgary’s share of all home construction in the region has stayed above 80 per cent.

None of this is to say that we don’t need to do better. We do. That’s why the city has embarked on two major initiatives, with extensive stakeholder engagement: Cut Red Tape and Transforming Planning.

The Cut Red Tape initiative is in early days, but has already resulted in over $1 million and 30,000 hours in savings for citizens and the city.

Transforming Planning is the largest project the city has ever undertaken to overhaul and streamline the planning system. In brief, its goal is to make it easier to build good stuff in Calgary. We are bringing in some of the best thinking from around the world and some of the smartest people in our local industry, as well as citizens, to recast everything we do in planning, from the development of neighbourhood plans to the processing of building permits.

Industry, too, is changing. The newest neighbourhoods are being built with long-term sustainability — financial, environmental and social — in mind. The new area of Keystone, which will be home to 60,000 people (1.5 times the entire population of Airdrie), is a great example. Work opportunities will be closer to home, the community is designed from the ground up to be well-served by transit, and there won’t be any cul-de-sacs. Not great for street hockey, but the grid system is far better for moving people and goods around, whether by car, bus, bike, or foot.

There are and will continue to be differing and strongly held opinions on growth. This is healthy, and we should have those debates. But it’s also important that our discussions be respectful and start with the truth. That’s the basis of building a better city.

- Mayor Naheed Nenshi

Read the story at the Calgary Herald here.