Calgary Minute: Hearing Costs, Housing Committee, and a Lengthy Repair Timeline

Calgary Minute - Your weekly one-minute summary of Calgary politics

This Week In Calgary:

• This afternoon, at 2:30 pm, the Council Compensation Review Committee will meet to discuss - you guessed it - Council’s compensation. Then, on Tuesday, at 9:30 am, there will be a City Council meeting. Council will hear a verbal update on the City’s 2023-2027 Anti Racism Strategic Plan before discussing the creation of the Council Advisory Committee on Housing. The Committee will have 9 to 15 members, including representatives from housing developers, market rental housing operators, non-market housing developers and operators, homeless-serving agencies, shelters, transitional housing operators, Indigenous People in Calgary, Calgarians with lived experience or knowledge related to homelessness, housing precarity, seniors, students, families, universal access design, and housing for equity-deserving communities such as newcomers.

• On Wednesday, at 9:30 am, there will be another meeting of City Council. This meeting will be entirely devoted to the 2024 Annual Update from Boards, Commissions and Committees.

• The Intergovernmental Affairs Committee will meet on Thursday at 9:30 am. No agenda is available for this meeting yet. Later in the day, at 1:00 pm, the Calgary Planning Commission will meet to discuss a few land use amendments. There is space on the municipal calendar reserved on Friday at 9:30 am for the City’s Wholly Owned Subsidiaries Annual General Meeting.

Last Week In Calgary:

• The broken water main, which triggered city-wide water restrictions, was found to have additional problems during a recent scan, extending the repair timeline by three to five weeks. The scan revealed five more locations inside the pipe that urgently require repair work to prevent further breaks. This discovery means continued water restrictions for an extended period, with the possibility of further, more serious restrictions. Prior to discovering the additional issues, work was paused on the repair due to worker injuries. On Saturday morning, Mayor Jyoti Gondek declared a State of Emergency to, in her words, help "expedite things".
  
  
• CUPE Local 38 said it’s ready to declare a work-to-rule campaign due to stalled negotiations with the City of Calgary for a new collective agreement. A recent strike vote showed strong support for further labour action among the union's members, some 5,000 City office workers. The main issues in negotiations revolve around wages and work-from-home policies, with both parties still far apart despite third-party mediation attempts.
  
  
• The City disclosed spending over $1.2 million on costs related to the extensive public hearing for the blanket rezoning bylaw, which lasted several weeks and involved numerous speakers. Preparation expenses for the public hearing amounted to $945,000,the actual hearing incurred costs of $330,000, mail outs to residents cost $590,000, and additional expenses, including overtime wages for staff and meetings/meals came in at $396,000 and $56,000, respectively. Mayor Jyoti Gondek said it’s important to be transparent about the cost of democracy, while some Councillors members expressed concern over the high price tag compared to alternatives like a plebiscite. Council is currently considering improvements to the process for future engagements of this kind.

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