The CKE Board has considered the City’s city-wide Rezoning Proposal, the views of residents shared with us during our membership drive and otherwise and the information shared through the media and from other Community Associations. Although we share the City’s concerns about the need to increase the supply of affordable housing in Calgary, we concluded that the current proposal will not address the stated problem with affordable housing in the manner that is being presented to citizens by the City, as outlined in our submission on the Rezoning Proposal.  We were also very concerned about the potential that one of the other effects of the proposed blanket rezoning would be to facilitate cascading re-development of some communities in a way that would change fundamentally the character of those communities without sufficient regard to the cumulative effects of large-scale re-development and without sufficient opportunity for affected Community Associations and residents to express their concerns when each community has unique perspectives. In addition, we struggled with the implementation of a blanket rezoning proposal when ten communities in SW Calgary had worked with the City for over three years on the Heritage LAP to develop a densification strategy that would basically be superseded by the current proposal.

 

The letter to Councillor Penner from the CKE Community Association reflects the CKE submission shared several weeks ago through the City’s comment portal.

 

The CKE Community Association is by no means alone in expressing serious concerns about the proposal. FiftyCommunity Associations (including CKE, Meadowlark Park, Mayfair Bel-Air, and Palliser Bayview Pump Hill) collectively agreed to be signatories to a letter objecting to the current Rezoning Proposal (Email Submission).

 

Similarly, the Federation of Calgary Communities, which represents 156 Calgary Community Associations and generally refrains from taking positions on any planning issues, wrote a six page letter to Council expressing very serious concerns about the process that was used, the level of true consultation with Community Associations, and serious concerns about the current proposal.

 

For more information regarding the City of Calgary’s rezoning proposal click here.