Blanket Rezoning...

How Calgary Communities are Fighting Back!

I attended a Townhall in my Ward, last night.

There was an amazing turn out of people, packed into a community hall…all with one focus - Blanket Rezoning.

Since city council has passed this egregious and undemocratic bylaw…a lot of Calgarians feel helpless.

Angry.

Scared.

190 Development Permits have already been granted.

But last night, there was a bit of a sense of relief in knowing that something could be done.

You see…properties are already under certain covenants that date back to when they were built…and as the rezoning will focus on older communities, these can be very important.

Older properties are on the radar for developers because they have larger lot sizes, some with unkept homes, can be purchased for less…

And then overdeveloped…in communities that may not want to see this densification.

Given the age of these houses, 50, 60, 80 years old…some of these Restrictive Covenants may still include restrictions on how many or if you are even allowed to have goats. Others, may look like cannot have a brothel (honestly), or a gravel pit, or be converted into a metal forging shop.

Even, way back when, a sense of community was important and disruptions through the ‘offensive thing’ at the time, were restricted to allow for the dwellers to not be impacted.

These, for all intents and purposes, can be viewed like a Home-Owners-Association. Basically, legal agreements that limit how a property can be used, to keep things in check, under the ideals of the people who moved into the area.

They don’t include things like, must maintain your grass to a certain height…

Can only have so many seasonal decorations…

Pets…

Cars parked on the streets…

Homes not being used as rentals…

But they may include height restrictions on the property…how far the homes must be set back from public sidewalks, access restrictions…

And again, they probably already exist on your property.

To get an idea of what these are, you can look up your property on Spin2 →Link, and even see what the rest of your neighbors have on theirs as well.

When a developer goes to rip down a single family home, and add in a dozen dwellings…their plans still must be registered, forwarded off to your community association and signs need to be put up on the property, to allow the neighborhood to get a sense of what is coming. In some of these cases…they may go against the restrictive covenants, but if are uncontested or unchallenged, the developer may go ahead and ignore them, dropping in mammoth buildings that don’t really tie in with the contextual stylings of the neighborhood.

So…when you see these signs pop-up, or when you hear word from your Community Association…having this information and then banging on some doors in your community, can allow you to fight these.

But don’t wait too long…

As soon as shovels hit dirt…there is no longer a battle to be had. You’ve already accepted the consequences.

In one of the communities mentioned, last night…this exact thing happened. Some neighbors caught on to what a developer had planned and tried to rally the neighbors against it. The properties immediately neighboring, thought that development of the land may be beneficial to them…may have even increased their property values.

But their minds were quickly changed when the older home was removed, new basements dug and how much it now encroached on their homes.

It was too late.

Other situations, developers said that a duplex were going to be developed…neighbors thought this to be okay…but then the plans changed to have 8 separate dwellings. Neighbors rallied, challenged the development…and shut down the project!

SHAZAM!

The problem with existing restrictive covenants is that some of them weren’t written very well and aren’t seemingly that effective on stopping these monstrosities from popping up in some neighborhoods.

But this too can change.

You see…you, your neighbors and community can get together and form your own RCs.

These can be set up in the same manner as have always been…and get this, can even have an expiry date so that as the city does continue to grow and as minds change…they’ll simply pass and allow for less restriction on the community. Those that have been added, as discussed, came with either a 50 or 75 year termination timeline.

This way…you are preserving your community, but taking future generations into consideration.

Costs can be prohibitive…as these will work out to be around $500/home.

This isn’t what it costs to register…what it is, is a lump sum that is put together by as many people in your community to allow for meetings, legal council and to set aside a Trust Fund for legal representation, should this be required.

The previous mentioned challenge was around $30k…

So the more neighbors you have signed up, the more compliance you’ll see in the neighborhood, the more awareness you’ll have…and if the rubber meets the road, cash in the bank to dispute.

If you think of all of the costs that go into maintaining your property…$500, for this type of insurance, peace of mind and the preservation of your community…really ain’t that bad.

Add in…there may be additional benefits to having this in preservation of the value of your home. IF there are enough of your neighbors working to maintain the contextual appeal of your community, it will be enticing for others to look at, when comes time for you to sell, them knowing that they won’t have multiplexes dropped in beside them.

IF I make it to City Council, I intend to work with others to fully repeal this bylaw, but…you may still want to go ahead and do this. While I believe that most city councillors will be also be looking to repeal, if they want to win in their Wards…this won’t stop future elected from doing the same.

You can check out the Chinook Park-Kelvin Grove-Eagle Ridge (CKE) Restrictive
Covenant Initiative…to see how they made out in their community →HERE

Or…if you have any questions about this, feel free to ask me. If I don’t have the answers for you…I’ll see if I can get you pointed in the right direction.

Thank you again to the host of this meeting, Jean…the community that all came together and all of the presenters in this, who’d requested to remain anonymous.

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