Blueprint for growth called 'not workable'
CALGARY - Home-builders and suburban developers began laying out demands for changes to the city’s long-term blueprint for a more compact city, urging much softer density targets and a consultation approach so contentious that even a leading Plan It skeptic on council appeared to disagree.

The industry has coordinated a string of business leaders to speak at Day 3 of the public hearing into Plan It, to try dismantling city staff’s case for a future Calgary with more walkable, Garrison Woods-style communities and a weakening of the dominance of single-family homes in the outskirts.

Jay Westman, CEO of Jayman MasterBuilt, became the latest Plan It opponent to call it “social engineering,” saying Calgary businesses produce standalone houses because people overwhelmingly want them.

“It’s my customer that will lead the change, not a government-imposed policy,” he told council.

But the developers’ association may have ran aground in its bid for a task force to iron out details that excludes members of the public.

Michael Flynn, the group’s executive director, reasoned that since developers and home builders shoulder the financial risk for new suburbs, only their representatives should sit down with city staff to find out how Plan It should ultimatley work.

“The way I see it, the taxpayers had a financial risk whenever the city does,” retorted Ald. Ric McIver, who has shared the industry’s concerns that Plan It targets would interfere too much with market choice.

Westman said he hopes to shoot down the argument that suburban developers don’t pay their fair share of infrastructure costs to provide roads, power and other amenities to their communities.

Many aldermen and Plan It supporters have cited City Hall or city-commissioned reports that argue developer levies and charges only cover half the cost of growth, and the city would spend $11 billion less on infrastructure if the compact city Plan It envisions came to be.

Industry players and other critics of Plan It are expected to take all of the third day of the public hearing to plead their case.

The industry also said they’re building smarter suburbs already. Marcello Chiacchia of Genstar Development Co. touted his firm’s south-end Walden community, where 60 per cent of residences are multi-family units like condos or townhouses.

Chiacchia warned that Plan It asks developers to go even further, even if they worry there’s not enough customer demand for that.

In an interview, Chiacchia said more customers prefer suburban alternatives to the standalone house than they used to a decade ago, and that semi-detached homes are outselling detached ones in Walden because they’re more affordable.

“It’s a fluctuating trend,” he said.

Aldermen will likely not fully approve Plan It when they conclude the hearing Friday, but ask city staff to retool the document before a final vote this fall.