Zoning

Definition

Zoning is the process whereby governments regulate how and where buildings can be developed within a geographical space. It directs: the shape and size of a building and the uses allowed on the property through land use designations. The City of Calgary has dozens of land use designations covering commercial, residential, special purpose, and industrials uses.

Why are we talking about this for Calgary?

Zoning and land use bylaws are often more relevant to city governance than most people realize. However, due to a recently proposed city-wide bylaw amendment, Calgarians are probably more well-versed on the concept and importance of zoning than most citizens of a large city.

One of the main reasons for the constrained supply of housing and housing diversity in the city is that the current land use districts (prior to the rezoning amendment) in approximately 60% of Calgary’s residential areas only allows single-detached homes. Given the changing population in the city, allowing diversity in housing structures within each community better suits the wide array of individual and family needs of Calgarians, and a mixture of rental and ownership properties at market and non-market (subsidized) rates offers people at all income levels access to safe and stable housing options.

The recent bylaw amendment proposed a city-wide rezoning to a base residential zone to allow for a greater variety of housing in all communities in the city. Rezoning is the process of changing the current use of a property to something for which it is not currently zoned. Until recently, there were 26 residential districts in Calgary, which the new amendment simplifies to 4 districts:

  • H-1I Housing – Small Scale Infill: Low-density residential developments and home businesses in evolving neighbourhoods
  • H-1G/H-1Gm Housing – Small Scale General: Low-density residential developments and home businesses in newly built communities or larger, comprehensive redevelopments in existing communities
  • H-2 Housing – Middle Scale: Low- or medium density residential developments
  • H-3 Housing – Multi-Residential: Medium-density residential developments

This change allows more housing supply and choice when adding housing to the city, which also means a wider range of affordability levels are possible in all neighbourhoods. In 2021, roughly 55% of Calgary’s private dwellings were single-detached houses, which both reduces the land available for additional housing and often ensures that huge swaths of the population are priced out of home ownership or housing options.

 What part of the housing puzzle does rezoning address?

A prominent concern of those opposed to the rezoning amendment, and those candidates running in the election on a platform that states they would repeal it, is that the amendment was too broadly applied; that many communities should not have been included in the blanket rezoning because the character of the neighourhood was at risk, or else that aging infrastructure couldn’t support increased density, or else that increasing housing options in the area might reduce property values etc.

The reality of these arguments is that none of them stack up against the fact that Calgary is a growing city that needs more middle-income housing to address the financial gap between single bedroom apartment rentals and single-family detached homes. Most mature communities, especially those built prior to 1980, are declining in population and they need an influx of new neighbours to re-invigorate residential and business areas in the community. New homes are also more efficient, which means adding housing in communities with existing infrastructure (e.g. roads, water and waste management, fire departments etc.) is much less likely to overload systems. This also ensures services generated by taxpayers are not spread to sprawling communities while the older communities face deterioration and stagnation but reinvested into those communities where there’s now an even larger tax base to draw from.

Reducing property values is, in short, necessary to ensure a more affordable housing market for a broader percentage of the general population. Naturally, there is anxiety from people who don’t want to see their home value decrease, but increasing housing options in a broad spectrum of neighbourhoods also adds direct economic value to the area through a greater tax base, an influx of businesses, and greater community engagement, which can often increase the value of homes in those areas. It also isn’t true to say that even if we were to build enough housing to offset the demand that house prices would drop so significantly as to lead to a depressed market, as the city still controls permitting and development pathways so can help direct the pace and timeline of housing developments to align with the broader city plan.

Another common example given by those who oppose rezoning is the profit of developers and real estate groups when development of multiple duplexes or a fourplex are created on the same plot of land where there was once a single-family home. The argument goes that the single-family home priced at, for example, $800K has now turned into four homes each priced at $3-400K, allowing developers to substantially increase their profit margins. And if we were only looking at a single metric of housing i.e. the cost of housing, we could agree that this has not directly increased affordability for all. But by many other metrics, this development would be considered a success. For instance, the same plot of land that used to house between 2-4 people, can now house 8-16 people – which, when applied to multiple plots of land in a community, is a significant increase in availability. Additionally, there are other ways to manage the financialization of housing via developers that do not involve supressing development entirely (see our blog post on the financialization of housing). Finally, a study out of Finland shows “that low-income individuals in the city area also benefit from new expensive housing, even when the new units are allocated to individuals higher up in the income distribution.”[1] This is due to the vacancies that are created by higher income groups moving towards new developments. The study specifically found that “for each 100 new, centrally located market-rate units, 29 units get created through vacancy in bottom-quintile income zip codes and 60 units in bottom-half income zip codes.”[2]

Zoning is one of the most important tools local governments have to support housing initiatives despite the fact that housing is under the jurisdiction of provincial governments.

Scarcity of housing means a lack of housing affordability, a lack of housing stability, and suppressed economic development  – pushing groups with more income to capture the part of the market previously accessed by lower income groups, whose options are further reduced to co-habitation with friends and family or living in spaces that are unsafe or unhealthy. Scarcity of housing, for the same reasons, forces individuals into units that don’t adequately meet their mental, physical, or psychological needs. For many, including Alpha House’s clients, this doesn’t just mean being housed in a smaller unit (1-bedroom vs 2-bedroom for example), it could mean:

  • an inability to be housed in a certain community where they have connections
  • an inability to downsize because the cost of a smaller house is the same as your current home
  • an inability to upsize because there is a limited supply of larger housing and older residents are staying in their homes longer due to lack of options
  • an inability to access supportive housing due to a lack of options in the city
  • an inability to be housed in an accessible neighbourhood
  • an inability to be housed in a neighbourhood with a familiar culture

…and many other needs that may not be met due to a lack of diversity and choice around our housing options.

Different types of housing options could include single-detached, rowhouse, townhouse, apartment, and semi-detached. An increase in the availability of these units will lower the prices of these same units due to an increase in supply; the idea being that these price decreases will make renting/owning a rowhouse, for example, more accessible for someone who is living in smaller or shared accommodations and wants to move into a bigger space. As these individuals move into bigger spaces, the availability of 1-bedroom apartments increases thereby making them more affordable for those with lower incomes.

Rezoning will not solve all our housing-related problems, but it was a critical step forward in supporting affordability for Calgarians through increasing the diversity of the housing supply and we would be foolish indeed to attempt to reverse it.

Check out the rest of the content on our Vote Housing page (https://alphahousecalgary.com/votehousing ), where we have a lot of great information and commentary about housing in Calgary

 

[1] https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/181666/vatt-working-papers-146-city-wide-effects-of-new-housing-supply–evidence-from-moving-chains.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

[2] https://www.doria.fi/bitstream/handle/10024/181666/vatt-working-papers-146-city-wide-effects-of-new-housing-supply–evidence-from-moving-chains.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y