A coalition of local organizations and housing advocates has issued a call to Calgary city council to find a replacement plan to deliver housing after the repeal of citywide rezoning.

The call came at a press conference outside city hall Monday with dozens of supporters of citywide rezoning across several organizations, including More Neighbours Calgary, Good Neighbour, Calgary Transit Riders, the University of Calgary Students’ Union and the Calgary Alliance for the Common Good.

“There are people working full time who cannot find a home,” More Neighbours co-founder Willem Klumpenhouwer said. “Repeal without replacement doesn’t pause that crisis, it makes it worse.”

Last week, council voted 12-3 in favour of repealing citywide rezoning after eight days of public hearings that saw more than 400 people address councillors on the issue.

The move will see 306,774 residential properties across the city redesignated back to their original low-density residential districts.

The policy, which took effect in August 2024 after being approved by the previous city council, changed the city’s base residential zoning to allow for more housing types on a single property, like duplexes, rowhomes and townhouses, without requiring a public hearing.

Citywide rezoning was one of 98 recommendations included in Home is Here, the city’s strategy to boost housing supply and affordability, amid concerns about impacts on community character, a lack of public input into redevelopment and increased density.

The coalition, however, said repeal will result in more expensive housing.

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“Without a solid plan to replace, development will regress and stagnate. Gains on supply and affordability will be lost,” Rev. Kersi Bird with the Calgary Alliance for Common Good said. “The issues at hand are not just about what communities look like, or how much parking is available, it’s about everybody having a place; about security, and dignity, and seeing a future in this city.”

The groups are accusing Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas of not keeping a campaign commitment to repeal and replace citywide rezoning with a new plan to entice densification and build more housing.

Klumpenhouwer said Farkas has broken his commitment to “gentle density” across the city during last fall’s election.

“Six months of silence is not a strategy, it’s not leadership,” he told reporters. “We need a timeline, we need a compromise, and we need it now.”

In response to the coalition’s calls, Farkas said council is committed to “decisive action” to address housing issues, but not just with zoning policy.

He pointed to council’s financial support of the chief housing office, as well as partnerships with non-profit housing providers, and efforts to make land available for subsidized housing.

“I have zero interest with replacing blanket rezoning with a new blanket rezoning,” Farkas told reporters. “I want to work legitimately with the community to be able to get this right, take the input that Calgarians are providing us, build the public will, and then deliver the housing Calgarians need.”

The repeal of citywide rezoning will take effect in August, but local developers told Global News the effects are already being felt in the industry.

Shameer Gaidhar with the Calgary Inner City Builders Association (CICBA) said developers will be limited to single-detached or semi-detached redevelopment in established neighbourhoods without requiring a zoning.

“When our members go out and build houses, they build two types of houses: a paper house and a brick-and-mortar house. The paper house can take up to seven months to develop, and the brick-and-mortar house can take another seven months,” Gaidhar said. “The chances of you getting a development permit by August is really slim so a lot of people said, ‘Nope, we’re waiting until a replacement plan comes down.’”

According to Ward 4 Coun. DJ Kelly, who voted in favour of repealing citywide rezoning, a replacement plan could take up to 18 months to complete following an overhaul to the city’s development plan as well as the zoning bylaw.

Kelly said he plans to bring forward a motion to boost the use of local area plans to help guide redevelopment in established communities as part of a replacement strategy.

“We have to get to work on increasing the amount of local area planning that we’re doing as a city in order to be able to codify exactly where that density belongs in our neighbourhoods,” he told reporters.

City councils have approved eight local area plans so far, with another three currently under development; the city’s goal is to complete 42 plans across the city.

According to Kelly, there are 25,000 fewer people living in Ward 4 since its historical population peak, and housing advocates are “not wrong” in their calls for a replacement to citywide rezoning.

“We need to bring more people back into the community in order to keep our schools open, in order to provide reliable transit. Those are things you need a population density to be able to do,” Kelly told reporters. “They’re definitely right in terms of this can’t be the end.”

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A Calgary city councillor denies knowing why the RCMP seized his devices last week, but said he is cooperating fully with the investigation.

Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot told reporters Tuesday that he was “completely surprised” when RCMP officers executed a search warrant at his home on Thursday, which is believed to be connected to a corruption investigation first reported by CBC News.

“I have no idea what the investigation is about. I do know that I was asked to provide my devices for them to gather evidence. That’s about as much as I know,” Chabot said.

“I’m fully cooperating with the police. I’m hoping that somehow it will result in something that they can utilize, but at this point I have no idea what they’re investigating.”

Chabot said he was not questioned by police nor does he believe he is under investigation.

The representative for Ward 10 said he would’ve been “more than happy” to have given officers his phones had they asked.

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“This is a bit of a distraction, no question about it, but I’m fully complying,” Chabot said. “I have nothing to hide.”

Defence lawyer Alain Hepner confirmed he has been retained to represent Chabot, who reiterated his client has nothing to hide and is cooperating with police officials.

Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas said he is aware of the situation and that he has not been contacted by the police.

“Because this involves an ongoing investigation with potential legal implications, I have no further comment at this time,” he told reporters Tuesday.

When asked about the investigation, the Calgary Police Service confirmed it received a complaint that was referred to the RCMP in October 2025.

“To protect the integrity and confidentiality of the ongoing investigative process, no further details will be released at this time,” the police service said in a statement to Global News.

The complaint was referred to the RCMP’s Federal Policing Northwest Region, which confirmed the ongoing investigation “relating to a referral we received from Calgary Police Services in October 2025.”

“To protect the integrity of this ongoing investigation, we have no further comment at this time,” an RCMP spokesperson said in a statement.

More to come… 

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Alberta’s newly-tabled budget, and its impact on local property taxes, is facing criticism from Calgary council and the city’s mayor, who is calling for more transparency around how the money will be spent.

On Thursday, the provincial government unveiled its budget with a second straight increase to the education property tax rate to generate $3.6 billion; $1.2 billion of that has been requisitioned from the City of Calgary.

New city data shows the move means that 42 cents of every property tax dollar collected in Calgary will go to the provincial government.

At a press conference Friday, Calgary Mayor Jeromy Farkas expressed his disappointment in the budget’s impact on city taxpayers.

“It is looking a lot like Calgary’s deal in Alberta is very similar to what Danielle Smith says Alberta’s deal is in Canada,” Farkas said. “But, for us, we want to come to the table, we want to be collaborative, we want to work with the provincial government.”

Although Farkas noted some “positives” in the budget, including funding for affordable housing and for maintenance for seniors homes, he questioned what Calgarians are getting back from the money sent to the province.

The increase is expected to cost the typical Calgary homeowner an extra $340 this year.

In comparison, city council whittled down the property tax increase in its budget back in December to 1.6 per cent, which is expected to cost the average homeowner an extra $54 in 2026.

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“We did the work,” Farkas told reporters. “To have a scale of increase 10 times the tax increase being lobbed by the provincial government in a single year without any kind of head start or notice, that is just incredibly egregious.”

The provincial budget does include billions of dollars in continued and previously-announced investments for Calgary, including ongoing funding for the Green Line LRT, upgrades to Deerfoot Trail, and the infrastructure around the new event centre, as well as $67 million over three years for the city’s court of appeal, and $10 million for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Other provincial facilities in the city also saw a boost, including the Foothills Medical Centre Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, the Calgary Radiopharmaceutical Centre, the Alberta Kidney Care, Bethany Continuing Care Centre and the Bridgeland Riverside Continuing Care Centre.

However, Farkas said it was “sobering” the budget didn’t include a mention of the Prairie Economic Gateway project, or the Bearspaw feeder main, which has prompted an emergency replacement after two critical ruptures in less than two years.

“If there wasn’t a huge tax increase, I wouldn’t be expecting add-ons for the City of Calgary,” Farkas said.

Finance minister Nate Horner defended the tax hike during a post-budget address to an audience of the city’s business community at a luncheon hosted by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce.

Horner said the increase is to help fund a third of the education ministry’s operating budget, which was telegraphed in last year’s budget.

“We didn’t want to put it all onto folks in one year, so we staggered it over two,” Horner said. “I’m surprised that everyone is this surprised, to be honest.”

Horner told the audience that the education budget is $10.8 billion this year, and the construction of new schools is “dominating” the provincial capital budget.

He said out of 40 new schools announced this year, 14 will be in Calgary.

While the investment and new schools are welcomed,  Ward 10 Coun. Andre Chabot, who was also in attendance at the event, said the funding is addressing matters that fall under provincial jurisdiction.

“The majority of the things he was talking about are things that fall under provincial obligations, not municipal obligations,” Chabot said. “He didn’t talk about water infrastructure for the City of Calgary, he talked about infrastructure, alright, but provincial infrastructure.”

Chabot said the budget is “seriously lacking” in support for municipal infrastructure.

Ward 13 Coun. Dan McLean said the property tax increase will be challenging to stomach for some residents.

“This is going to be a really tough sell to Calgarians,” McLean said. “I think it’s very important that we let our residents know what the province is requesting from them and what the city is taking from them, because this is a large increase.”

Farkas said city council will be discussing measures to respond to the property tax increase, which could include sending two separate property tax bills to Calgarians.

Late Friday, Farkas called a special council meeting on March 4 for that debate.

In comparison, the education property tax requisition is nearly $640 million in Edmonton, which is expected to cost the typical homeowner in that city an extra $154 this year.

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