The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - May 01, 2024


Calgarians outraged over rezoning plans


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

193.14842

Word count

1,994

Sentence count

150

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this week's episode, Councillor Dan Mclean joins me to discuss Calgary's proposed blanket rezoning plan, which would see areas zoned for single family homes rezoned to allow for townhomes and row houses.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.940 Rachel Emanuel brings the news each day on Alberta Roundup. She has her say.
00:00:11.060 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel.
00:00:15.460 Outrage has broken out in Calgary as Calgary City Council has proposed new rezoning efforts.
00:00:22.800 The city has entered week two of its largest and longest hearing ever.
00:00:27.000 As scrutiny of the city's proposed blanket rezoning strategy continues.
00:00:31.680 The rezoning would amend land use bylaws in neighborhoods that currently allow Oling for single family homes.
00:00:37.960 Meaning that areas now zoned for Oling single or semi-detached homes would be rezoned and allow for townhomes and row houses. 0.99
00:00:46.060 Joining us now to discuss is Calgary Ward 13 City Councilor Dan McLean.
00:00:50.600 Dan, thanks so much for joining us today.
00:00:52.520 Thanks and good morning Rachel.
00:00:53.760 So one of the questions that I'm hearing a lot of when I talk to Calgary residents is they actually aren't sure how many properties are going to be allowed on a home.
00:01:01.920 So for example, let's say you live in a neighborhood, there's a little old bungalow beside you.
00:01:05.960 That bungalow could be sold, it could be taken down and four new properties could be built.
00:01:10.240 The city's saying it could be four.
00:01:11.700 The city's also saying that there would be allowed suites in each one of those four units.
00:01:16.740 Which would actually mean that there's eight new properties on a home beside you, which before was just a bungalow with maybe a couple people living in it.
00:01:23.240 So what's your understanding of what's actually going to be allowed under these rezoning efforts?
00:01:27.960 Yeah, I think the city has done a very poor job communicating this.
00:01:31.540 When they say four units, that means like four doors that come off of a sidewalk, off of a street.
00:01:36.260 But you're correct.
00:01:37.300 It actually includes four basement suites.
00:01:39.220 But it's actually even worse than that.
00:01:41.720 You could have four backyard suites or granny suites.
00:01:45.580 So it's not just four.
00:01:47.080 It could be eight or 12.
00:01:49.640 12 units on one property.
00:01:52.560 So one of the problems that's going to arise with this is obviously infrastructure.
00:01:55.900 These neighborhoods weren't built.
00:01:57.040 The roads weren't built to allow for all the parking.
00:01:59.080 There could be problems with the sewage.
00:02:00.440 There could be problems with the recycling at the road.
00:02:02.680 Currently, I live in Rockland Park.
00:02:04.420 I'm only saying that because we're actually moving shortly.
00:02:06.120 Otherwise, I wouldn't let my viewers know where I live.
00:02:07.640 But it's one of five masterclass cities being built across Calgary.
00:02:11.960 And it's really incredible what they've done with the infrastructure here.
00:02:14.440 There's a townhouse complex towards the end that was built to develop and have extra parking
00:02:18.700 for all people that live in the townhouses.
00:02:20.360 As well, there's mass recycling bins, mass garbage bins to really manage all the people.
00:02:25.220 But when we have a situation where you could have a bungalow beside you that's now turning
00:02:28.520 into eight units, what's going to happen to the infrastructure in the city?
00:02:31.520 Because it just doesn't seem like things are going to hold up.
00:02:35.580 Good point.
00:02:36.300 And again, it could be 12.
00:02:37.640 Already, in some of these communities that have started to densify, there's problems
00:02:42.240 in the back alleys with, like you said, trash containers.
00:02:45.620 And don't forget parking.
00:02:46.760 Parking is a big one.
00:02:47.720 They're talking about 0.5 units, 0.5 parking stalls.
00:02:52.000 I had one person present the other day, and they said, who drives half a car?
00:02:56.980 I mean, this is where we're at.
00:02:58.340 So if you have, say, a single family home, like you said, one trash can and two parking spots,
00:03:05.020 and maybe you could park in front of you if you have a driveway and a garage.
00:03:09.000 But now this is going to be a problem with additional parking.
00:03:12.180 If you are in center block, mid-block is where we are going to see most of the problems.
00:03:16.360 If you have a corner or on a busy thoroughway by close to a transit station, I understand.
00:03:21.880 There's a density is needed in the right places.
00:03:24.300 But mid-block and middle of established communities, that's where people are having a problem.
00:03:29.940 Because not only with the parking, not only with the crowded trash containers, but like
00:03:34.300 you had mentioned, Rachel, the infrastructure.
00:03:37.720 Can we handle that many more toilets flushing? 1.00
00:03:40.820 And who's going to pay for it?
00:03:42.860 So yeah, there's some big issues here to consider.
00:03:46.580 Why doesn't the city use city-owned land to build some new houses instead of having people
00:03:50.840 who have really invested their entire livelihood into their home?
00:03:53.660 I mean, if you think about it, homes costing half a million dollars, people spend lifetimes
00:03:57.120 paying off mortgages and their investment is being ripped away from them.
00:04:00.220 They don't know what's going to happen to the neighborhood they live in.
00:04:02.760 Why doesn't the city use their own resources?
00:04:04.520 Yeah, it's their biggest investment probably in their life.
00:04:08.060 The uncertainty has created chaos in the market as well.
00:04:11.560 The city does own lots of properties.
00:04:13.900 We're the single largest landowner, obviously.
00:04:16.940 And a lot of these properties are by transit stations and community corridors.
00:04:21.020 You know, and it knows the transit nodes.
00:04:24.340 So we should be developing those first.
00:04:26.680 I agree with that completely.
00:04:28.320 And then gentle density.
00:04:30.180 So what's happening now, Rachel, is we already have what's called local area planning,
00:04:34.540 where the city goes through each community.
00:04:36.860 And then they decide, okay, well, right here is where we can maybe add some more density.
00:04:41.860 You know, some rural housing or some townhouses.
00:04:43.860 But right here is not a good place for it.
00:04:46.080 And here's where we can maybe put a shopping mall or maybe a grocery store or a convenience store.
00:04:51.000 It takes a little longer, but it's well thought out and it's planned per community.
00:04:55.740 We should just continue doing that.
00:04:57.680 This is now blanket is what I consider just lazy.
00:05:00.740 And you have to question the motives behind it.
00:05:03.580 Sure.
00:05:04.060 When we're talking about questioning the motives, I mean, another thing that's been raised is
00:05:06.860 it almost seems like this could be a cash grab for city property taxes.
00:05:11.020 If you think about it, if you live somewhere, you're one house,
00:05:13.500 you're paying property taxes on that one property that's taken down.
00:05:16.740 That's created into four units, maybe suites.
00:05:18.700 You said it could be up to 12.
00:05:19.920 Now all those separate units are paying property taxes.
00:05:22.780 The city is going to just be raking in the property taxes here.
00:05:26.020 And we're talking about affordable housing.
00:05:27.480 I mean, in most cases, this is an affordable housing that's going up.
00:05:30.860 Some of these townhouses that are being built are still going for $650,000.
00:05:34.580 That's an insane amount of money for a townhouse.
00:05:36.700 You don't even have a lot of land.
00:05:38.080 So the city is just going to be raking it on the property taxes.
00:05:40.720 Could that be a possible motivation for why they seem so bent on pushing forward this policy
00:05:46.040 that it seems nobody wants?
00:05:48.520 Well, of course, the city is going to have additional taxes.
00:05:51.240 And you're quite low on your $600,000 marks.
00:05:53.720 A lot of these are a million, a million plus.
00:05:55.880 They'll take a $600,000, $700,000 bungalow.
00:06:00.240 And again, this is where the speculation comes in.
00:06:02.060 It's not just the city that's going to be raking in money.
00:06:05.200 It's the industry developers.
00:06:06.700 I'm a capitalist.
00:06:09.320 I believe in the free market.
00:06:11.120 But this is still giving an unfair advantage.
00:06:14.720 You will see developers coming in, buying up people's homes in certain places.
00:06:20.300 And then what that does, it puts pressure on the person that wants to stay there in their
00:06:23.860 forever home and keep that home.
00:06:25.240 They have their equity, but it's not just that.
00:06:27.080 They enjoy their backyard and their neighbors and their trees.
00:06:29.780 And they move there for a reason.
00:06:31.940 But then two or three neighbors on that block decide to cash out with the speculators.
00:06:37.460 And next thing you know, their enjoyment of their property, maybe they put up solar panels
00:06:42.940 and maybe they've invested in a garden.
00:06:44.840 All of a sudden, they're moving out.
00:06:45.940 And so it just destroys the fabric of those communities, which is, again, why people are
00:06:50.520 upset about it.
00:06:51.640 The affordable housing aspect of it, you'll see that was a really huge narrative at the
00:06:56.340 beginning of this.
00:06:57.160 Everybody's backing away.
00:06:59.860 We've had multiple presenters, experts from the chief economists from Calgary Real Estate
00:07:05.060 Board, saying that this will not make homes less affordable.
00:07:09.080 It's been proven in New Zealand and in Vancouver, anywhere where density, the length of density
00:07:12.960 has been done, it has not lowered the prices of homes at all.
00:07:16.500 It's been actually the reverse.
00:07:18.280 So now we're not hearing that narrative because it doesn't carry any water.
00:07:23.020 It's more about building more supplies.
00:07:24.800 So, yeah, that's kind of my take on it.
00:07:29.760 How likely is it that this policy continues to go through at this point?
00:07:32.640 I mean, I feel fairly confident in saying Calgary residents, by and large, don't want
00:07:36.060 this.
00:07:36.240 It's a small percentage of people who support these policies.
00:07:38.900 But the homeowners who have spent their lives, as we mentioned, investing in their
00:07:41.760 properties don't want this. 0.98
00:07:43.100 So what are the chances that we can actually reverse this and get back to some common sense?
00:07:46.780 So what we're going to be having is a few more, several more days of debate, and then we will
00:07:54.320 debate amongst ourselves or several more days of public hearings.
00:07:58.120 And then that's when the councils will debate and put amendments forward.
00:08:01.140 The first thing I would like to do is put it back on the floor to bring it to a plebiscite, 0.99
00:08:05.480 to refer it back to administration, say this is 70, 80 percent of the population does not
00:08:10.420 want this.
00:08:10.980 Let's put it on the ballot and let's come back and at least we're working on something
00:08:14.900 that people is more tenable, that more people will support.
00:08:18.340 We will see how that goes.
00:08:19.620 I need eight votes.
00:08:20.640 It failed last time by one vote to take it to a plebiscite.
00:08:25.360 So the odds are it might not pass this time.
00:08:30.040 But again, Rachel, there's been so many people speaking against this.
00:08:33.320 And so there's a few councillors that are really listening and have done polls in their
00:08:37.660 own wards.
00:08:38.080 So we need people to possibly vote with the public when it comes to time.
00:08:44.500 And again, not to go on too long, but there will be some amendments that some councillors
00:08:49.760 will put forward to maybe try to water this down instead of maybe four, eight, 12 units.
00:08:54.700 They might make some concessions.
00:08:55.960 But in my opinion, it's going to be, yeah, I can't tell how people are going to vote,
00:09:05.420 but it's going to come down to one or two councillors to see which way this goes.
00:09:09.160 And if this continues to go forward, I mean, obviously there's going to be some damage done
00:09:12.180 in the time since, but we're looking at a municipal election next year.
00:09:15.200 Is it possible that a new city council next year could reverse this policy if it is passed?
00:09:20.240 Oh, yeah.
00:09:21.020 City council can do anything.
00:09:22.380 If you've got eight votes, it doesn't have to include the mayor, but eight votes, you
00:09:25.760 can fire the city manager.
00:09:27.560 You can reverse policies.
00:09:28.720 There's a whole bunch of things you can do.
00:09:30.140 So one way or another, this will be under ballot next election.
00:09:34.700 Councilman McLean, I know you have to head out to continue going and listening to these
00:09:37.420 presenters talk about why this isn't a good thing for the city.
00:09:39.720 Thank you so much for taking the time to join us today.
00:09:42.460 Excellent.
00:09:42.860 Thanks for having me, Rachel.
00:09:44.380 All right, everyone.
00:09:45.080 I'll be back on Saturday with my regular show.
00:09:47.080 I hope that you guys have a great week.
00:09:48.260 I'll talk to you soon.
00:09:49.440 I'll talk to you soon.