City of Calgary is debating a rezoning to allow multiplexes city-wide. Boomer NIMBYS, predictably, are mad.
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Mind the generation gap in Calgary's debate over zoning and townhouses
Council hearing shows split between older and younger, haves and have-nots
Jason Markusoff · CBC News · Posted: Apr 27, 2024 1:00 AM PDT | Last Updated: April 27
It was gearing up to be a battle for the ages: Calgary's big rezoning debate over permitting fourplexes in any and all neighbourhoods in the city, with hundreds of speakers expressing opinions across more than a week of hearings at city hall.
It has often appeared as a battle of the ages. It's hard not to notice the generation gap between the Calgarians fighting for the change, and those fighting against it.
One didn't even need to step inside city hall chambers or flip on the hearing's livestream to see the apparent differences.
In the plaza outside city hall on Monday morning as the public hearings began, a few dozen community association activists from the city's various corners wagged signs and sported black-and-white buttons that said, "NO Blanket Rezoning YYC."
At noon that day, another crowd gathered to demonstrate in favour of the measure recommended by Calgary's affordable housing task force, many carrying a political action group's placards saying, "All Calgarians deserve homes."
This was a noticeably younger group, more millennials and Gen Zs.
As the debate unfolded, one could crudely split the debating lines into younger or older, or into the haves and have-nots. The divide is between those who have and don't have homes they own.
Many Calgarians opposed to the plan were homeowners, worried about the zoning that could come to their own neighbourhoods, if one could develop duplexes, townhouses or row houses in almost any residential district.
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The residents who support citywide rezoning often aren't homeowners, but hope to be. They'd like more of a chance to join those neighbourhoods the others are scrapping to preserve as is, without the potential upheaval of subdivided lots for extra homes.
Disruption? Change? Potential for struggles to find guest parking on one's block? "That doesn't supersede the need to have a roof over our head," Alex Williams said in an interview.
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One speaker was rankled by the very fact that renters were injecting their voices into this debate. Others who came out in favour of rezoning warned of the disproportionate privilege of older homeowners who bought property well before prices spiralled out of reach for many.
The age gap was so pronounced to some speakers that one older southwest homeowner made a point of saying she wanted to "break the stereotype that every boomer is opposed to rezoning." She supported expanding options to build small multi-family developments in communities like hers.
At stake in this debate, in essence, is the abolition of R-1 zoning, which only allows detached homes, and is the dominant neighbourhood mode in Calgary.
Instead of R-1 or R-2 (which allows duplexes, too), the default district would be R-CG — the grade-oriented infill district. It would allow townhouses or row houses, up to four units on a 50-foot lot, plus potentially basement suites and even backyard units — totalling eight or 12 dwellings where a single bungalow currently sits.
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In northwest Calgary, the median price for a detached home is $761,000 this year, according to the Calgary Real Estate Board. For a row house, it's $477,000.
And that's a world that has changed so much over the decades. In 1990, the average Calgary detached house cost $131,000. The median price for standalone houses sailed past $200,000 in 2002, broke $400,000 in 2007 — and then came the pandemic. In the last four years, that price has shot up by about 50 per cent to $718,400 this March, for the typical detached house, which remains the most plentiful housing type in Calgary, and the only offering available in much of the city.
Some homeowners fretted that this zoning change would sink their property values. After this much increase, that might sound like sweet music to those young Calgarians for whom a $700,000 house, its down payment and monthly mortgage costs, remain far out of reach.
A common argument came from residents opposed to this change: what's the point, if tearing down an old house and replacing it with a few brand-new townhouses or fourplex units won't actually create anything remotely classified as affordable housing? (And yet, so many of the critics also worry these new homes will bring crime and ne'er-do-wells into their midst.)
The response from advocates is that it all adds supply to a supply-starved, demand-heavy and rapidly growing city. More homes of all types will help keep increases in check.
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Coun. Jasmine Mian says this debate appears to have the biggest generational divide of anything she's handled in her first term on council, the young pushing for housing choice and change, and older homeowners concerned about the future of their property asset and how congested their neighbourhoods might get.
"It is a battle of generations that I think is going to put council in a very interesting position about what do we do for the future of our city," said Mian.
She, along with Mayor Jyoti Gondek, are among a slim majority on council whose past votes suggest they'll likely support rezoning — and many, like Mian, are among the youngest councillors.
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Full article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...ysis-1.7186852
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