Your Neighbourhood, Your Say, Our Calgary

Find out how you can participate in our City’s planning policies that shape the future by staying up-to-date on blanket upzoning (plus associated legal challenges), Restrictive Covenants, the use of Direct Control zoning, and the upcoming municipal election.

About Us

Calgarians for Thoughtful Growth, is the grassroots coalition formed in response to the City of Calgary’s May 2024 blanket upzoning bylaw (the “Bylaw”). Our group began as the principal applicants in the legal challenge to the upzoning Bylaw and quickly grew to include over 600 individuals including named applicants, many others who wished to become named applicants and hundreds more financial contributors from across the city.

We sought a court review of the Bylaw because we believe it exceeds the City’s legal authority, was adopted through a process lacking fairness and impartiality and disregarded the overwhelming majority of public input received during the hearing process. We are appealing the lower court decision because we and our counsel believe it was incorrect. Our coalition continues to grow and is supported by legal professionals, community leaders, and engaged residents committed to ensuring that growth in Calgary reflects democratic values and community input.

Our work goes beyond the appeal of the blanket rezoning bylaw. We are actively engaging in Calgary’s municipal discourse in several ways:

Voter Education in the 2025 Election:

We are circulating a detailed candidate questionnaire on land use and planning reform to all candidates in the upcoming municipal election. We will publish the responses so that Calgarians can make informed decisions based on candidates’ positions on blanket upzoning, community consultation, and procedural fairness.

Defending Property Rights Against Misuse of DC Zoning:

We are raising public awareness of the City’s recent use of Direct Control (DC) zoning to manufacture a conflict between zoning and private restrictive covenants. The City uses this practice to challenge and remove covenants— without adequate public consultation, legal transparency, or clear articulation of the public interest. These moves appear designed to bypass safeguards and should concern all Calgarians who value private contractual interests, property rights and neighbourhood planning stability.

Through all of our efforts, we aim to uphold the principle that city-building must be inclusive, lawful, and grounded in community trust. We are ordinary residents, working to ensure that planning decisions reflect public values, not just ideological or political agendas. Under the banner of Calgarians for Thoughtful Growth, we are working to ensure housing is built with communities, not in spite of them.

  • We envision a City Council and Civic Administration in Calgary which work together with communities to achieve mutually agreed community evolution. Specific principles are already stated in Calgary’s Municipal Development Plan (“MDP”) which is the highest-level statutory planning document which governs what development is permitted in Calgary.

  • For established neighbourhoods, the MDP already requires the City to respect the existing character of low density residential areas; encourage only modest redevelopment; ensure infill development complements the established character of the area; ensure community engagement that identifies and addresses local character, community needs and appropriate development transitions with existing neighbourhoods; reinforce the stability of Calgary’s neighbourhoods; make redevelopment more predictable for existing communities by lessening the impact on stable, low-density areas; and promote infilling that is sensitive, compatible and complementary to the existing physical patterns and character of neighbourhoods.

We agree with the above principles. But Calgary’s City Council and Civic Administration are, and have been for some years,ignoring them and we call on them to follow these guiding principles:

  • Proper Community Consultation - Give communities and their residents a guaranteed, meaningful say in how development occurs in their neighborhoods, ensuring growth respects local character and context. Community consultation doesn’t mean “no,” it means better. Inclusive planning leads to smarter development, healthier neighbourhoods, and fewer legal battles down the road.

  • MDP Compliance - Ensure that each development permit application meets the MDP requirements described above

  • No Clone 15 Minute Communities - Reject the “complete communities” concept, so as to preserve the unique character of each existing community 

  • Realistic Parking - Require reasonable off-street parking as part of every redevelopment, to reflect actual vehicle ownership rates in Calgary

  • Contextual Sensitivity -Bring back contextual setback and height requirements

  • Smart, Targeted Density - Limit multiplex development to main streets, activity centres and major transportation nodes

  • Better Local Area Plans (“LAPs”) - Re-do the existing LAPs and require all new LAPs to have meaningful community engagement and to be reflective of community input

  • No Cheating - Restrict ability of the Civic Administration to grant relaxations as part of redevelopment

  • Continued Engagement - Require notice to community and all affected residents for each requested amendment to a development permit application

  • Respect Restrictive Covenants - Include review and compliance with restrictive covenants as part of the planning process

  • Don’t Abuse Direct Control - Prohibit use of Direct Control zoning to defeat restrictive covenants or to permit development not otherwise aligned with the LAP, Area Structure Plan or other governing community-level statutory planning policy