Citywide Rezoning Repeal: How Councillor Yule Voted and Why

In 2024, City Council approved citywide rezoning as one of 98 recommendations in the Home is Here Housing Strategy, with the goal of increasing housing supply, assisting with housing affordability, and expanding housing choice across Calgary.  

In December 2025, Council initiated the process to consider repealing that decision, 

Rezoning was not an explicit part of Councillor Yule's campaign platform. The top three priorities heard from Ward 3 residents during the election were infrastructure, transit, and the need for more community spaces.   

Over the course of the March 23 Public Hearing, the input of Ward 3 residents - through presentations to Council, our Ward 3 town hall, and direct correspondence - played an important role in shaping Councillor Yule's final vote. 

Rezoning & Ward 3 

To put it plainly, repealing citywide rezoning without a thoughtful replacement is an unfair burden for Ward 3.

Prior to rezoning, Ward 3 carried the weight of the city's growth model. Approximately 75% of new development was occurring on greenfield land at the city's edges, with only 25% taking place in established areas. That meant communities like ours - already navigating very real gaps in amenities and infrastructure - were absorbing the cost and pressure of expansion while the rest of the city largely stood still.

Rezoning finally began to change that. After just one year, the development split shifted to 57% greenfield and 43% established area. A meaningful redistribution of growth toward parts of the city where roads, utilities, transit, and schools already exist. Repealing rezoning risks reversing that trend, pushing development pressure back to the outskirts, and with it, the cost of extending roads, utilities, and services into areas that don't yet have them.

Ward 3's physical characteristics have largely insulated us from the direct impacts of citywide rezoning. Younger communities, curved roads, cul-de-sacs, and limited back lane access make denser redevelopment both logistically challenging and financially unattractive to developers. As a result, zero housing units have been built in Ward 3 as a direct result of citywide rezoning. Looking ahead, the development most likely to come here is basement and backyard suites - modest additions that reflect the ward's suburban form, rather than the kind of infill intensification seen in older, more established parts of the city.

But this vote was never only about Ward 3. At its core, it was a question about what kind of city Calgary is becoming. Whether growth continues in areas where infrastructure already exists, or whether it pushes outward and demands new investment at the city's edges. For Ward 3, that concern is real: without rezoning redistributing growth across the city, development pressure will find its way back to the suburbs, and communities like ours will bear the brunt of that cost. 

What Ward 3 Residents Shared 

Several Ward 3 voices stood out during the public hearing: 

• A Ward 3 renter drew attention to rhe fact that non-market housing, rentable suites, apartments, and Habitat for Humanity units are increasingly being concentrated in the city's furthest communities, areas with limited or no access to transit, LRT, schools, or nearby amenities. 

• Another resident described the reality of moving to a more affordable but car-dependent community in Ward 3, and the challenges that creates for households trying to get by without full reliance on a vehicle. 

• A third presenter detailed the cost of sprawl: the loss of wetlands, and the reality that when growth pushes outward, tax dollars must follow. The City's infrastructure deficit, officially reported at $7 billion when the repeal process began, has since been assessed at closer to $50 billion. Urban sprawl will continue to add to that deficit.  

• The Northern Hills Community Association raised the pre-rezoning pattern of development in Ward 3, where dense housing was rapidly added to fill citywide gaps in the housing market. The conversion of the Harvest Hills Golf Course to high-density housing over a decade ago is still a topic that comes up at the doors, and a return to that greenfield-focused approach is precisely what a full repeal brings back. 

Ward 3 Speakers: Nora MacGregor, Mark Hayden, Jessica Buresi, and Shannon Palmowski

The following reflects the broader scope of outreach and input our office received from Ward 3 residents throughout this process: 

Source	Total Submissions	Notes
Public Hearing- W3 Speakers	4	Support Repeal: 0 Do Not Support Repeal: 4
Pubic Hearing- W3 Written Submissions	6	Support Repeal: 4* Do Not Support Repeal: 2 Misc/Off Topic: 1 *majority of submissions for repeal noted parking limitations as the primary concern.
Resident Emails to the W3 Office	18	Support Repeal: 8* Do Not Support Repeal: 10 *majority of submissions for repeal noted amendments or replacement as an appropriate next step for repeal.
Ward 3 Town Hall Submissions	26	Support Repeal: 8* Do Not Support Repeal: 9 Neutral: 9 *majority of submissions for repeal noted amendments or replacement as an appropriate next step for repeal.

*Several residents who noted being in support of a repeal pointed to specific Ward 3 developments as evidence of rezoning's impact on our communities. As noted earlier, zero developments have been built in Ward 3 as a result of citywide rezoning. The developments cited are not R-CG projects and have no connection to blanket rezoning. 

What Was Before Council 

It is important to be clear about what the vote was and what it was not. The motion before Council was a straight and complete repeal. Not a repeal and replace. Not an amendment to make improvements on what wasn’t working. A full repeal of the blanket rezoning that the previous Council put in place. 

Removing land rights is a significantly different and riskier action than granting them. The previous Council provided certainty by expanding what landowners could do with their property. Repealing that removes rights that Calgarians have already begun acting on.  

With the repeal, roughly 60% of Calgary reverts to single-family only zoning. Any future density increases will require individual land use change applications and public hearings, adding workload for Council and Administration and costs that will flow through to taxpayers and home buyers alike. Development pressure will shift back to the city's outskirts - a pattern Ward 3 knows well. For our communities already contending with infrastructure and amenity deficits, that means more strain, and for the City, it means the ongoing cost of building and maintaining more roads, more water infrastructure, and more services in areas that don't yet have them. 

The Vote 

The repeal motion passed 12-3 with Councillor Yule voting against.  

Rezoning has been one of the most debated planning issues Calgary has seen in decades, and residents on both sides hold reasonable and deeply felt views. Not every Ward 3 resident will agree with this vote, and that is both respected and understood. But one question raised during the public hearing framed the issue well: are we building the Calgary being demanded of us, or preserving the Calgary of the past? Stewardship of a growing city sometimes means making difficult decisions. This was one of them.  

Those who campaigned on repealing rezoning followed through on that commitment, and that is a legitimate outcome of a democratic process. However, the concerns that shaped this vote remain on the table. The need for more housing choice, the cost of sprawl, the infrastructure deficits, the concentration of affordable housing in car-dependent communities without services, and the risk to federal housing funding. Those issues do not go away with the repeal, and Councillor Yule will continue to raise them as Council works through what comes next. 

The repeal is not the end of this conversation. What replaces citywide rezoning will matter just as much as the repeal itself, and Ward 3 residents deserve a voice in shaping it. Our office will continue to keep you informed as that process unfolds. 

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For more background on rezoning and how it affects Ward 3, visit andrewyule.ca/post/rezoning. For a full recap of the Ward 3 town hall Q&A, visit andrewyule.ca. 

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