A city planning policy shift in Calgary proves that upzoning works

In January 2022, the California Housing Opportunity and More Efficiency (HOME) Act — or Senate Bill 9 — completed its arduous journey through the California state assembly, senate, and finally across Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk to become law. The bill’s supporters across the state heaved a sigh of relief: Finally! Californians might be able to escape the worst housing crisis in the country. The new law would increase the housing supply by allowing for property owners to add up to four homes to formerly single-family lots through a couple of different mechanisms, including splitting a lot to be sold to a new owner for development.

While still in its early days, SB 9 offers an unprecedented opportunity to grow California’s housing stock by streamlining and standardizing the lot subdivision process. That opens up the opportunity for an estimated 720,000 new market-feasible infill housing units statewide, according to a report from the Terner Center at UC Berkeley. What could things look like a few decades from now, after a generation of Californians take advantage of the reforms?

Housing advocates and city planners could look to the Canadian city of Calgary for a few hints. In the 1980s — with a significant overhaul in the mid-2000s — Calgary successfully established a land use bylaw that would increase urban infill in the city’s core and build out its missing-middle housing, eventually constructing nearly 70,000 new duplex units in downtown neighborhoods. 

Calgary’s population doubled between 1980 and 2010, which put pressure on the city’s planning department to commit to more housing in its core neighborhoods. A rewrite of the land use bylaw allowed for the rezoning of some single-family neighborhoods to be able to convert standalone structures to duplexes and semi-detached homes. And since those neighborhoods have been rezoned, some have seen 90 percent turnover from single-detached homes to duplexes.

How did they do it?

• The city made permitting simpler: Calgary’s zoning laws create a template — or “box” — for development that will fit most lots across the city, with standardized features like front setback distance and access points. This removes much of the uncertainty in the permit process by creating a framework for projects that will get approval from the city. Calgary also requires that permits be approved within a set period of time. 
• City government worked with the construction industry to establish design standards: Another Terner Center analysis suggests that strict requirements in municipal design standards that specifically apply to SB 9 housing act as an obstacle to getting that housing built. In 2010, Calgary’s city planning department collaborated with members of the building industry to create objective design standards for infill housing, which balanced city priorities with financial feasibility for builders. 
• The planning department kept impact fees low: Surprise! Making the building process cheaper facilitates construction, and impact fees in California can double a project’s cost. Calgary’s fees for infill housing only apply to the net increase of housing units on lots, and rarely exceed a few thousand dollars. In California, the loss of municipal income from fewer fees could be supplemented by the expected additional property tax paid on a new unit of housing.

Calgary’s success with missing-middle housing has so far been restricted to a few neighborhoods in the city’s core, which are specifically zoned to allow this type of development. But the 2009 Municipal Development Plan, according to former Calgary senior planner Nelson Medeiros, suggested that “municipal capital investment and infrastructure should place the highest priority on supporting intensification of developed areas of Calgary and not greenfield areas.” 

And now, a contingent of Calgary residents are pushing for expanded opportunities to build duplexes and triplexes on lots zoned for single-family housing, which make up the vast majority of the city. The city itself has set forward a goal to house a projected 650,000 new residents by 2069 without adding further sprawl, which has been deemed a “herculean task.” This past spring, Calgary’s Housing and Affordability Task Force recommended rezoning all residential areas under a code that puts “single, semi-detached, row and townhouses into a single land use district.”

As more and more cities reckon with a persistent housing crunch, we can take inspiration from policies like Calgary’s that have yielded real results — creating more opportunity for people to live close to friends, family, and work.