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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

I don't think the question about whether fossil fuels is a good idea is actually relevant from a local Calgary perspective.
This is a good comment is so often missing from the dialogue. Of course oil and gas is important economically - but it's not particularly useful or relevant to consider when planning what actions to take in policy, cities or local economic resilience.

The recent UCP inquiry-slash-farce into Anti-Alberta activities takes the stance that Alberta and oil are one and the same; in fact 93% of our workers work in another industry besides the extractive ones. The myth of Alberta as a conservative petrostate is deeply repellent to a lot of people, and we can't afford to turn away and drive away that talent. An Alberta that dug up every drop of oil the same, but never went around peacocking like it was some great accomplishment rather than a necessary evil would be substantially more diverse and economically sustainable.

Oil is a commodity -- people use the oil they can get cheapest. But people are unique; they have values and make decisions based on those values. And we need to be on the right side of those decisions in the coming decades.
Great point - the myth-building about oil in this province is a key reason we have so many politically-driven, absolutely terrible economic decisions in this province with public money. $1.5B for a guaranteed-to-be-cancelled Keystone pipeline, tons of money for party friends to have war rooms and witch hunts are the recent examples in the past 2 years. That's just picking on the latest few billion of populist-based of waste, our history is littered with many more billions all burned on the alter of the Alberta's oil myth.

Could $1.5B public dollars go to achieve a different outcome, something that could have achieved better multiples and is something public money is better at achieving?
  • start of regional rail - Banff-Calgary-Edmonton? Generate new trips, more interactions, economic spinoffs all at a lower carbon footprint.
  • University/education research development in any number of fields?
I guarantee either of those investments had a higher expected return for local economic benefit than $1.5B lost to Keystone.
I've said it before, but when I think of industry cities after the industry goes away (like it will here), I think of Pittsburgh after steel and I think of Detroit after auto manufacturing. Pittsburgh used industry money to build educational institutions and medical centres and is thriving again as a high technology centre; Detroit spent the time getting angry about foreigners and has declined to a husk.
This is the great challenge for us. Calgary, Edmonton and Alberta have been there before oil and will still be there long after, transition is inevitable. It's up to us if we want that transition to be healthy and successful or lean into the charlatans selling an untrue victim story.
 
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Anyone know what this refers to?
 
Article on the sheer volume of rentals built in the Calgary area recently:
 
Article on the sheer volume of rentals built in the Calgary area recently:
Thanks for the article. I wanted to highlight a quote in it from Alkarim Devani, co-founder of Calgary’s RNDSQR:
"...I think there’s less of a priority on our target audience in terms of ownership. So I’m quite confident that we will see absorption."
using the word "priority" is downright insulting given the housing affordability in this country.
 
Article on the sheer volume of rentals built in the Calgary area recently:
We probably have discussed this before, but good time to go back to the data. Calgary has one of the lowest per-capita purpose-built and rental condo supply per capita of any big city. I pulled some data from the latest CMHC report on the rental units available. Someone may know better, but I think the only caveat to CMHC's total rental units is it excludes publicly owned and operated supply (another area Calgary underperforms in, so even if we added that I think it would strengthen the case).

With that said numbers are still relevant to discuss:

1635522255212.png


My general Calgary hypothesis is despite our in-ordinate amount of wealth for the past 4 decades and relatively short urban history, nothing is particularly unique about us - over time Calgary will trend towards the "Canadian big city average" in many areas, including the rental market.

Removing Quebec cities and Halifax - all with unique, very long and different development histories with respect to rental housing - we are more likely to trend towards the "West of Quebec, over 500,000 people average" - so somewhere between 0.06 - 0.09 rental market units / person.

Here's some scenarios:

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From the macro viewpoint, if you believe my hypothesis Calgary "should" have between 22,000 - 67,000 more rental units today than it does. The question then really becomes about timing and absorption - the factors that keep our rental housing stock low, how robust are they into the future? How fast will we trend towards the average? A decade or two? A century?

To estimate that requires more work than my simplistic analysis - none of these variables are actually static; populations grow and change, growth/market share changes of owner-occupied housing supply (which will continue to grow), growth and how the other cities are changing (i.e. is the average actually changing over time?) etc.

Whatever happens at whatever pace of development, I think there's pretty strong indications that we should expect to see lots of rental mid / high-rises in our future.
 
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Thanks for those stats. I'm also a believer in the "law of averages".

One thing I've also wondered about is whether demand for detached and semi-detached homes in Calgary is, ironically, partly driven by a lack of rental units in multi-family buildings. When I moved to Calgary in 2015, I looked for rentals in high-rise/mid-rise buildings first. I was struck by the high prices and lack of options available. So I ended up renting an entire 1950s semi-detached home for about the same price as I would have been paying for a unit in a high-rise. Even though I wanted to live in a more centrally-located tower, I just couldn't turn down the value proposition of having three times as much space, a yard, and a garage for the same price.

If we do get a major boom in rental units dumped into Calgary, even if it creates high vacancy rates, maybe it gives people more choices and more competitive rates that make renting more attractive vis-a-vis detached/semi-detached homes. Even people who might be more included to want to live in a house may decide it's just easier to rent in a tower if the price is right or they have a lot of choice.
 
Future supply/price for homes is the biggest variable for sure. Home prices in Calgary remains attainable relative to other cities, which is why Calgary has the highest rate of home ownership amongst major Canadian cities. Unless attitudes toward home ownership change or supply decreases drastically, I think the volume of purpose built rentals required is going to be dependent on developers continuing to divert attention towards purpose built rentals and the City limiting new development on the periphery (which would probably be absorbed by adjacent municipalities).
 
Thanks for those stats. I'm also a believer in the "law of averages".

One thing I've also wondered about is whether demand for detached and semi-detached homes in Calgary is, ironically, partly driven by a lack of rental units in multi-family buildings. When I moved to Calgary in 2015, I looked for rentals in high-rise/mid-rise buildings first. I was struck by the high prices and lack of options available. So I ended up renting an entire 1950s semi-detached home for about the same price as I would have been paying for a unit in a high-rise. Even though I wanted to live in a more centrally-located tower, I just couldn't turn down the value proposition of having three times as much space, a yard, and a garage for the same price.

If we do get a major boom in rental units dumped into Calgary, even if it creates high vacancy rates, maybe it gives people more choices and more competitive rates that make renting more attractive vis-a-vis detached/semi-detached homes. Even people who might be more included to want to live in a house may decide it's just easier to rent in a tower if the price is right or they have a lot of choice.
You might be right about the availability of SFH's. My niece moved out of on her own last year, she and her friend looked for apartments down around the core, but eventually settled on a SFH in Tuxedo (a couple of blocks east of 4th street NW) It was actually cheaper than many of the apartments they were looking at.
 
Yeah I've also found that it's cheaper to rent an old house than an apartment. Right now I live in a 4 bedroom duplex for $1350/m. It's more suburban than I'd like but it's way too good to pass up. If I wanted an apartment in the beltline I'd probably end up paying slightly more for a fraction of the space. I'd need inner city rents to drop substantially in order to justify living there, despite that being my preference. So hopefully all these new rental buildings will cause rents to go down, at least in older buildings.
 
Yeah I've also found that it's cheaper to rent an old house than an apartment. Right now I live in a 4 bedroom duplex for $1350/m. It's more suburban than I'd like but it's way too good to pass up. If I wanted an apartment in the beltline I'd probably end up paying slightly more for a fraction of the space. I'd need inner city rents to drop substantially in order to justify living there, despite that being my preference. So hopefully all these new rental buildings will cause rents to go down, at least in older buildings.
That's what my niece was saying too. All things equal she'd rather live around the downtown area, but it was hard to turn down an SFH that was cheaper in price.
 
Thanks for those stats. I'm also a believer in the "law of averages".

One thing I've also wondered about is whether demand for detached and semi-detached homes in Calgary is, ironically, partly driven by a lack of rental units in multi-family buildings. When I moved to Calgary in 2015, I looked for rentals in high-rise/mid-rise buildings first. I was struck by the high prices and lack of options available. So I ended up renting an entire 1950s semi-detached home for about the same price as I would have been paying for a unit in a high-rise. Even though I wanted to live in a more centrally-located tower, I just couldn't turn down the value proposition of having three times as much space, a yard, and a garage for the same price.

If we do get a major boom in rental units dumped into Calgary, even if it creates high vacancy rates, maybe it gives people more choices and more competitive rates that make renting more attractive vis-a-vis detached/semi-detached homes. Even people who might be more included to want to live in a house may decide it's just easier to rent in a tower if the price is right or they have a lot of choice.
Good comments.

I agree the lack of supply is likely a bigger barrier in itself in how limited supply restricts rental choice at different quality/amenity/price levels. The issue is certainly true in the core where there was largely a 20 year gap in new rentals (purpose-built or condo rental) from 1985 - 2005. That gap leaves a weird amenity and price gap - a ton of older supply built pre-1985 that remains cheap but are also out of date and without many contemporary amenities from everything like kitchen quality, laundry, bicycle storage etc.

With the whack load of post-2015 supply starting to come online - we should start to see that filtering process kick into gear again. Shiny new, amenity rich places that seem expensive today will slowly age, get out of date with more developments (presumably) always coming down the pipeline. The 2035 version of @Silence&Motion moving to Calgary, will have a very different mix of old, new, amenity light/heavy rentals to choose from in the core.

But when the core lacks rental diversity, the quadrants are even more limited. There was/is almost zero rental/condo tower development outside the core at all, the few that exist are old and a drop in the seas of single-use, largely SFH ownership-heavy communities in the 1970s-1990s that really didn't offer any purpose-built rental at all or much choice. This is thankfully changing as well with all the different scales of in-neighbourhood infills in popular areas offering new choices plus starting to see more clusters of apartment towers forming.

Future supply/price for homes is the biggest variable for sure. Home prices in Calgary remains attainable relative to other cities, which is why Calgary has the highest rate of home ownership amongst major Canadian cities. Unless attitudes toward home ownership change or supply decreases drastically, I think the volume of purpose built rentals required is going to be dependent on developers continuing to divert attention towards purpose built rentals and the City limiting new development on the periphery (which would probably be absorbed by adjacent municipalities).

The affordability of ownership is certainly part of the story, it seems somewhat robust factor as we continue to allow significant supply for cheaper greenfield than Canada's biggest metros can/want to. However, Edmonton allows substantial greenfield and has great affordability, but also has a substantially larger rental supply, so it's probably not the only factor in the rental supply.

I do wonder how if greenfield/ownership affordability will weaken as a factor in reducing rental supply as the region keeps growing. The city and region are so big now and travel times are getting vast. Lots of pretty wild price differentials are forming for ownership in specific areas v. others - the region as a whole is affordable, but the pockets that aren't are increasing as well. For many popular neighbourhoods, rental would be the only affordable option.

As the city expands the locational benefits of certain areas becomes starker, I could see more people choosing location and ownership/rental preference differently in a larger Calgary than a smaller one.
 
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But when the core lacks rental diversity, the quadrants are even more limited. There was/is almost zero rental/condo tower development outside the core at all, the few that exist are old and a drop in the seas of single-use, largely SFH ownership-heavy communities in the 1970s-1990s that really didn't offer any purpose-built rental at all or much choice. This is thankfully changing as well with all the different scales of in-neighbourhood infills in popular areas offering new choices plus starting to see more clusters of apartment towers forming.
For sure! One of the biggest shocks of moving to Calgary visually was the lack of high rises in the suburbs. I wonder if people in Calgary realize that suburbs in Ontario look like: North York, Scarborough, Mississauga, Waterloo, Ottawa, London.
 

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