Calgary Minute: Issue 379

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

📅 This Week In Calgary: 📅

• Mayor Jeromy Farkas is warning that temporary outdoor water restrictions may return in September, when the City temporarily shuts down the Bearspaw Water Treatment Plant to complete electrical work for a new pump station. The shutdown is part of the North Calgary Water Servicing Project, a $533-million effort that includes a 22-kilometer feeder main to be installed below several communities near the city's northwest boundary. Farkas says any restrictions would depend on weather and water demand at the time, should last less than a week, and are part of planned work rather than a system failure. He also reminded Calgarians of a longer stretch of outdoor restrictions coming in October, when crews tie the replacement for the twice-failed Bearspaw South feeder main into the water system. Those Stage 4 restrictions are expected to last up to four weeks, because the tie-in requires taking the original feeder main, which carries 60% of Calgary's treated water, out of service. The $439-million replacement line is being built under 34th Avenue NW in Bowness and is slated to be operational in December.
  
  
• Work is now underway on a $90-million project to refurbish Bridgeland Place, the City-owned affordable housing high-rise across the Bow River from downtown, but new tenants will not move in until late 2028 or early 2029, a year later than previously planned. The 1971 tower provided subsidized housing for more than 50 years before it was deemed past its serviceable life and vacated in 2023, and its interior was stripped down to the concrete in 2024. Calgary Housing, the City's wholly owned subsidiary managing the redevelopment, attributes the delay to slower-than-expected confirmation of funding requirements and the development permit design process. The rebuilt tower will hold 203 units, down from the previous 210, a deliberate reduction to make room for three-bedroom units that better reflect the families on Calgary Housing's client list. Calgary Housing says it is aiming to add 4,500 affordable housing units across the city over the next 10 years.
  
  
• The City has released the results of its latest public engagement on the Blue Line LRT extension, with nearly 90% of 724 respondents either very or somewhat supportive of the one-kilometer extension from Saddletowne Station to 88 Avenue and 60 Street N.E. Many respondents said the project is too short, arguing it should continue to Country Hills Boulevard to serve fast-growing northeast communities like Cityscape, Skyview, Redstone, and Cornerstone. The project, currently estimated at roughly $160 million, is in detailed design that the City expects to complete late this year, with construction tentatively starting in 2028. City officials say the new station will provide more bus connections for the northeast and serve as the launching point for a future connection to the Calgary International Airport. A further extension to Country Hills Boulevard is in the 10-year capital plan but depends entirely on funding decisions by current and future councils, and even the current project still requires construction funding, potentially in the City's next four-year capital budget. Ward 5 Councillor Raj Dhaliwal says he will push hard to secure that funding, along with a higher priority for the Country Hills extension.
  
  
• The number of registered secondary suites in Calgary has doubled from 13,000 in 2024 to 26,000 today, growth the City credits largely to its Secondary Suite Incentive Program. The program, which has committed $45 million in federal and municipal funds so far, provides qualified homeowners up to $10,000 toward the cost of building, improving, or legalizing a suite, and half of the newly added suites were incentivized through it. The City estimates roughly 7,000 suites will have benefited directly from the program once all contracts are fulfilled and the funding is fully disbursed in mid-to-late 2027. Registered suites now represent a quarter of all new housing units added in Calgary over the past three years, up from just 431 registered suites in 2015. Applications are wrapping up, but the waitlist remains open until all funding is disbursed, and an amnesty program for suites built before March 2018 runs until December 2026.
  
  
• Also on the housing front, the City of Calgary reopened funding in June for its Downtown Office Conversion Program, putting an extra $25 million on the table for developers who convert unused office towers into apartments, hotels, and other uses. Council debated cutting the program entirely during 2026 budget adjustments before settling on $35 million, with $25 million for this funding round and $10 million held back for a separate non-market conversion stream. The relaunch raised the incentive for hotel conversions from $60 to $75 per square foot and opened a new competitive-bid stream for seniors' housing, student housing, co-living, and life-sciences space. There are now 21 incentivized projects completed or underway, converting 2.68 million square feet of office space into 2,667 homes, a 226-room hotel, and a hostel. City officials say the program is five years into a ten-year plan and nearly halfway to its goal of removing 6 million square feet of downtown office space. The analysis notes that developers and their investors will be the first to benefit, with taxpayers and renters waiting years before seeing the payoff.

🚨 This Week’s Action Item: 🚨

The City of Calgary has paid more than $120,000 in traffic fines issued to City fleet vehicles since 2023, after changing its policy to make taxpayers responsible for routine on-duty fines.

Unlike Calgary, employees in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, and Airdrie are responsible for fines incurred while driving city vehicles.

What do you think? Should taxpayers be paying the traffic tickets of City employees, or should the driver be responsible for their own fines?

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