OPINION: Why blanket upzoning won’t deliver affordability Calgary needs

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Calgary is in a housing crunch, and two commentators from the Fraser Institute recently argued in these pages that blanket upzoning is essential to making new homes “faster and cheaper.” It’s a tidy theory. It’s also wrong.

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Calgary does not have a zoning bottleneck. It has a cost problem, and blanket upzoning does nothing to address it. In several key ways, blanket upzoning risks making housing more expensive.

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Calgarians rejected blanket upzoning — twice

The authors gloss over the fact Calgarians have already weighed in loudly and clearly on blanket upzoning. During the city’s longest public hearing in 2024, roughly 70% of speakers opposed the policy. That opposition was not fringe or ideological. It was broad, sustained and grounded in real concerns about infrastructure, fairness and long-term neighbourhood impact.

Voters then reinforced that message in the 2025 municipal election. A majority of successful candidates ran explicitly on a promise to repeal blanket upzoning. Voters relied on those commitments when they cast their ballots. In a representative democracy, those commitments matter. Honouring campaign promises is not rigidity; it is democratic accountability. When elected officials reverse themselves after winning on a clear platform, public trust erodes. Good housing policy cannot be built on a foundation of broken commitments.

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Blanket upzoning hands planning power to speculators

Supporters of blanket upzoning claim it “responds to buyer and renter preferences.” In practice, it responds to the preferences of those who can profit from redevelopment.

Blanket upzoning across every neighbourhood shifts planning influence away from communities and away from planners, placing it squarely in the hands of developers and, increasingly, investors.

In today’s financialized housing market, the average homebuyer isn’t just competing with other families — they’re up against developers and investors who are funded through the Federal Affordable Housing Fund (AHF), which provides development money through low-interest loans and forgivable loans. The developers and investors treat housing as profit-generating assets rather
than places for people to build their lives. Redevelopment then follows profit signals that ignore infrastructure capacity, neighbourhood livability, and long-term city planning principles.

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Upzoning likely to raise land prices, not lower them

One of the most predictable outcomes of blanket upzoning is financialization — transforming housing into a target for speculation. When every parcel has blanket redevelopment potential, land values rise across the board. Rising land values attract investor buyers. And higher land costs require higher sale prices to maintain builder margins.

This pattern has appeared in U.S. cities, in New Zealand’s national upzoning strategy and, closer to home, in Edmonton. Deregulated infill and a sweeping new zoning bylaw coincided with a
surge of investor activity, rising prices in mature neighbourhoods and the rapid loss of older, more affordable homes.

Blanket upzoning functions like a lottery ticket taped to every property. Investors know it.

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Regular families eventually pay for it.

Density in mature neighbourhoods is not free

The Fraser Institute authors assume more density automatically reduces per-unit costs. That may be true in new suburbs, where developers pay most infrastructure costs. But in established neighbourhoods, the economics flip.

Multi-unit construction typically requires upgraded water mains, sewer capacity, road resurfacing, sidewalk replacements and improved drainage. Developer levies do not cover these costs. In established neighbourhoods, those costs are not paid by the developer; they are paid by the City and funded by the taxpayer through general taxation.

Blanket upzoning accelerates these infrastructure pressures without any plan to pay for them. That means higher capital budgets, higher operating expenses and, inevitably, higher taxes for
everyone.

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Density can be a good thing. But unmanaged density is expensive — and Calgarians are already feeling the strain.

If you want affordable housing, control the city budget

There is one factor that affects every homeowner and every renter in Calgary: the City’s growing tax and fee burden. Strikingly, the upzoning advocates never mention it.

Consider the proposed 2026 budget:

• A 3.6% blended property tax increase, roughly 5.8% for the average single-family home

• A 3.9% increase in utilities, waste and recycling fees

• An ongoing 1% tax shift from businesses to homeowners

• No meaningful restraint on operating spending

When taxes and utility charges rise each year, monthly housing costs do too, regardless of zoning. Landlords pass those costs on. Homeowners absorb them directly. Young buyers feel them the moment they move in.

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Zoning changes cannot counteract annual increases in taxes and fees. If the City wants to make a significant contribution to advancing affordability, the first step is to get its own spending trajectory under control.

A better way forward

Blanket upzoning was embraced by the prior city council as a shortcut to affordability. It has not delivered on that promise. Instead, it has driven up land values, strained infrastructure, deepened
public mistrust, and fuelled speculation in neighbourhoods never designed for unmanaged redevelopment.

Calgary can support more housing without blanket upzoning. However, it needs a city hall that plans with its residents, not around them. The path forward cannot rely on sweeping, citywide zoning experiments imposed without broad public support. The most constructive step now is for council to return to a neutral point, the known, stable RC-1 and RC-2 districts, which Calgarians understand and have relied on for decades. This reset is the necessary starting point for the next necessary step — the creation of a responsible, community-supported plan to increase density while preserving the qualities that make Calgary’s neighbourhoods livable.

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From that stable foundation, Calgary can pursue a balanced and credible strategy, including:

• Targeted rezoning in areas with genuine infrastructure capacity and transit access

• Incentives for purpose-built rental and partnerships with non-profit and attainable-housing providers

• Structured, efficient community engagement, giving residents a real voice without unreasonably slowing needed development

• Transparent evaluation of neighbourhood-specific constraints, such as water, sewer, roads, and emergency services

• Fiscal discipline, so tax and utility increases don’t wipe out the benefits of new housing

Calgary can do better, and the election results show Calgarians are demanding better.

— By Rusty Miller, Robert Lehodey, Patricia McCunn-Miller, Lisa Poole, Jennifer Baldwin and Chris Davis (Calgarians For Thoughtful Growth)

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