Calgary city council votes in favour of controversial housing proposal following public hearing

A controversial housing proposal in the southwest Calgary community of Richmond is in the midst of a marathon public hearing at city hall.

After a marathon public hearing, Calgary city council voted late Tuesday night in favour of a controversial housing proposal in the southwest community of Richmond.

The proposed site by Minto Group is the old Viscount Bennett High School that was shuttered by the Calgary Board of Education in 2018.

It’s been boarded up and is now being torn down to make way for affordable housing.

The plan has eight residential buildings, including three 16-storey towers.

It would add between 1,200 and 1,500 new units to the 4.6-hectare lot off Crowchild Trail.

Council voted 9-5 in favour of the project.

The developer, Minto, first purchased the property back in 2023.

It originally pitched a much larger development, with towers up to 30 storeys and a unit total of about 2,500 but cut the plan by half in January.

Even with the reduced number, the plan is still drawing concern from people who live in the area.

“What’s coming forward is, you know, a massive change in the population, a 20 per cent increase maybe in the number of people who live there. It would not fit in the structure as it exists,” said Kevin Widenmaier, president of the Richmond Knob Hill Community Association.

Widenmaier says residents worry about the amount of traffic the new buildings will bring.

They also have concerns about insufficient transportation, the area’s aging city infrastructure, and a lack of green space in the plan.

The Richmond Knob Hill Community Association created its own plan for what it would like to see built on the site, which had 400 units.

“There is a lot of potential there, and people are excited to see it developed,” said Widenmaier. “The concerns have risen naturally throughout the community, and there’s a broad concern about the proposal as it exists.”

Minto said the significant revisions it made in January were based on community feedback, and the new plan is well supported by city infrastructure.

“As with all projects of this scale, transportation and utility planning will continue in co-ordination with the City of Calgary to support current and future residents,” said the developer in a statement.

Minto noted its resubmitted plan recently received unanimous approval from the Calgary Planning Commission.

Celia Meunier has lived in the neighbourhood since 2012.

She says the project will increase traffic and people to the area, which she believes does not have the right infrastructure in place to accommodate.

“My biggest concern is just the exponential densification that’s being proposed,” she said.

“I get that there are towers outside of downtown. It’s part of modern life. But all of the other ones are actually connected, with direct access, direct adjacency to LRT stations. This one here, the residents would have to drive almost two kilometres to get to an artery or a train station.”

She says her community will lose 100 per cent of its character.

“We would be permanently changed with this decision,” she said.

“We welcome new neighbours. We welcome the densification. But we’re hoping that it’s contextually appropriate.”

Forty-five people addressed council on Tuesday through the public hearing.

Nearly 500 pages of public submissions were also presented.