Blanket rezoning opened door to new row houses across Calgary
City planners received 189 R-CG applications since bylaw was approved in May
After city council's blanket rezoning was approved in May, planners received a wave of nearly 190 row house and other R-CG applications.
A CBC News analysis has found these are concentrated in four communities — Bowness, Glenbrook, Mount Pleasant and Capitol Hill — but with other sites sprinkled throughout 56 other neighbourhoods.
These developments have an average of four units, including basement and backyard suites. But we found one example of up to 10 units approved for a deeper-than average lot that previously had one single-family bungalow.
There were only 21 of these kind of applications during the same period last year.
Already, several permits have been appealed to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board (SDAB), a quasi-judicial board that can revoke individual city permits.
While developers say the shading and parking issues will not be as extreme as some people think, one woman who canvassed her community said every new "For Sale" sign is now causing anxiety.
Debbie Kotlewski gathered signatures from 175 neighbours to support an appeal against a permit for a property next to her Renfrew house.
"You would not believe the angst that people are feeling," she told the seven-member SDAB review panel as she presented her case against the 10-unit complex in November.
"If they see a 'For Sale' sign next to them … it could be them in my shoes, and they could be appealing a multi-family development right beside them."
The decision came down two weeks later. She lost. The only change required from the developer was to add frosting to the side windows.
Worries about shade, parking and messy garbage bins
Allowing row houses and townhouses to be built on most residential lots in Calgary was part of the city's strategy to tackle rising housing and rent prices, which economists say has been fuelled by record numbers of people moving to Calgary.
The latest Statistics Canada data shows 76,000 people moved to Calgary between July 2022 and July 2023, and that grows to 96,000 if Airdrie and the other communities in the Calgary metropolitan area are included.
While Calgary's rental market is showing signs of cooling after three years of rising rents, industry experts say that trend will continue only if the building sector keeps up with building new supply.
The new blanket rezoning policy has been one of the most contentious efforts by the city to increase housing supply. Hundreds of residents spoke against it during a public hearing, and many are now trying to overturn the decision by applying for an injunction in the Court of King's Bench. That court date is set for Dec. 11. Others are working with neighbours to put in restrictive covenants.
The new rules allow a maximum of eight units (four primary suites and four secondary suites) to be built on a typical 50-foot wide lot. But if the lot is bigger, developers can apply to build more units — as long as they stay under the maximum rule of 75 units per hectare.
As the first wave of permits goes through the city, neighbours like Kotlewski say they're stunned by the intensity of these developments, and that the increased parking and garbage bins are causing a mess.
Kotlewski has lived in her house for 40 years and she's worried the row house will block sunshine for her greenhouse, her garden and the wall of beans she grows every year.
"My grandparents bought it. It's been in the family for over 60 years," she said, speaking outside the SDAB hearing. "It would affect my growing season by at least two weeks, and I am feeding our family and at least 20 other people all summer long. I haven't bought lettuce since June. I've got carrots, potatoes, beets in the fridge that'll last us until after Christmas."
But Shawn Jensen, principal designer at New Century Design, presented sun-shadow studies at the hearing to defend the project and said Kotlewski 's greenhouse will still get sun.
Jensen said the reason he likes to create two buildings on one site is so light will still get through to the neighbour's property.
He said creating these smaller units is important to allow more people the chance to buy or rent in the inner city.
"The wish that we would provide a big single family home or semi-detached — obviously that goes in the other direction from affordability," said Jensen.
A new single family home in this area would sell for more than $1 million and rent for $3,500 to $4,000 a month, he said.
"[These units] will be well under that," he said. "People can't afford single family homes in the inner city if they're just starting out. That's the whole reason these [smaller units] are being developed."
Narrow house means more units and a 'happy medium'
Relative affordability is a big part of why Sean McClellan chose to live in a row house.
In the spring, he and his partner moved into a three-bedroom row house in Bowness — the main hot spot for R-CG developments.
They're renting the unit for $3,000 a month. That's roughly $600 more than their previous Beltline apartment, but it offers double the space.
The building is about a year old and comes with a single garage and a large, private deck. As a plus, they no longer have to worry about riding the elevator downstairs to take their husky Sophie for walks, and the extra space meant they could get a cat.
"If you just had a small family or [you're] a couple, there's plenty of room. You don't have to maintain gardens or lawns or anything like that," said McClellan, sitting in the kitchen. The living room and kitchen are on the main floor, with three bedrooms upstairs.
"It's the only thing that anyone can afford now. If you don't want to live in a giant apartment building, I feel like it's the happy medium where you get kind of the best of both worlds."
There are at least two row houses on the block he and his partner recently moved into.
And just down the road, there are at least three other row houses under construction.
According to Realtor.ca, rowhouse units built in the last few years in the inner city sell for around $500,000 to $700,000.
One fix for the bin issue — private pickup
At the architecture firm FAAS, founding partner Michael Farrar said his firm is looking for ways to address neighbours' concerns over issues like bins and shading while meeting the city's need for more housing.
His firm has designed over 130 of them since 2016 and has about two dozen currently under construction.
Because neighbours were complaining about excess bins spilling out into the alleyways, FAAS now arranges for private waste, recycling and compost pickup. That way he can reduce the number of bins and increase the frequency of pickup, rather than relying on the city's schedule.
"Obviously, if you're picking up twice a week, you may need half the bins," he said.
Farrar's firm also likes to include courtyards in their designs to ensure neighbouring properties get light, similar to what the developer planned for the Renfrew property.
Those changes help, he said. But he still expects to see an uptick in SDAB appeals of R-CG developments. That's typically the case whenever the city changes policies related to land use, he said.
The future spread of row houses in Calgary
As for where these new row houses and other R-CG developments are going in, Farrar said it makes sense the first wave is concentrated in Bowness, Glenbrook, Mount Pleasant and Capitol Hill because those are established areas where developers likely already had an eye on land before the upzoning took effect.
Alkarim Devani agrees. He's co-founder of RNDSQR and mddl, a new firm that helps Canadians build middle missing housing like row houses.
Before the blanket upzoning, developers could put in row houses in those neighbourhoods but only after an expensive, long and unpredictable rezoning process, he said.
WATCH | An inside look at the contentious policy:
"A lot of folks were probably just waiting for the city to figure out what the new policies were going to look like and how it was going to land."
Over time, Devani said he expects to see more row houses and extra suites added in northeast communities like Rundle, Falconridge and Pineridge, where it can be the cultural norm to live in multigenerational homes to support each other with costs, cooking and child care.
"To be clear, I'm not saying that all their homes are going to get torn down," said Devani. "I'm just excited that now they can build a grandma unit for their grandma at grade or in the suite, or they can convert some of their homes and legally be able to live together."
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