'Blanket rezoning' brings sweeping change — on paper. In practice, it's often incremental

In 2018, when Calgary city council was considering a blanket rezoning to allow secondary suites citywide, among the long list of residents to speak against the idea was a gentleman from the southeast community of Parkland.

"I believe council's proposed changes are an attack on the quality of the community that I invested in 28 years ago," he told members of council.

Parkland is zoned almost entirely R-C1, which at the time restricted each lot to a single dwelling unit. If those rules were changed to allow for secondary suites in basements, backyards and above garages, this gentleman feared "non-residential investors will buy up properties" and build so many suites that "our community by default becomes a multi-residential area."

"I don't want [multiple] sets of occupants — rental occupants — living in one property on my street, with the associated noise, loss of privacy, traffic, parking space loss," he said.

Council ultimately went against his wishes and approved the changes. So far, though, his worst fears have yet to materialize.

Six years later, Parkland is now home to a grand total of four suites, according to city data — representing about 0.3 per cent of the roughly 1,400 homes in the community.

It's been a similar story in dozens of communities across Calgary, which have seen incremental change — or no change at all — since the city allowed secondary suites as a discretionary use in R-1, R-C1 and the R-C1L zones. Other communities, however, have seen far more suite development, particularly those in the northeast and north-central parts of the city.

Calgary's experience with the citywide change on secondary suites takes on new relevance today, as city council prepares to debate another blanket rezoning.

On Monday, council will consider a contentious proposal to re-designate virtually all residential areas to allow for duplexes and row houses. People wanting to build these higher-density types of homes would still need to apply for a development permit and be subject to a variety of rules and regulations, but they would no longer need to go before city council to apply for a land-use change.

The proposal is just one plank in the city's broader affordable housing strategy, but it's been the most high-profile and contentious aspect of the plan, with hundreds of citizens registered to speak before council and thousands of written submissions already received. 

Like in 2018, the idea of making citywide changes to land-use rules that have been in place for decades has raised concerns and ire among many Calgarians, particularly those who own single-family homes. Commonly cited concerns surround parking, traffic, noise and a desire to maintain the existing character of established communities.

Conversely, the plan has raised the hopes of affordable-housing advocates, even more so now — amid the housing crisis that so many Calgarians are experiencing — than secondary suites did six years ago. (In 2018, remember, Calgary real-estate prices were in decline and rents were a fraction of what they are today.)

Experts who have studied this kind of blanket rezoning in other cities, however, say it doesn't typically lead to the kind of major, rapid change that some people fear and others long for.

Alex Horowitz, director of housing policy initiatives with The Pew Charitable Trusts, a non-partisan think tank based in the United States, says the actual effects of blanket rezoning often end up being far smaller — and slower — than people think they're going to be.