May 7, 2025 Calgary, AB — The Calgary Party has released a comprehensive Housing Toolkit that outlines a bold, five-part strategy to address Calgary’s growing housing crisis. The plan calls for a fundamental shift in priorities to ensure every Calgarian has access to a safe, stable, and affordable home.
“Calgarians are being priced out of their own city,” said Brian Thiessen, Mayoral Candidate for The Calgary Party. “Our Housing Toolkit is a blueprint to fix that. It focuses on cutting red tape, speeding up approvals, and building the kinds of communities Calgarians actually want to live in.”
The strategy includes five key components:
- Making Housing Calgary’s First Priority – All City decisions will be evaluated through the lens of housing, aligning policies, budgets, and departments around a single goal.
- Faster, Predictable Approvals – Implementing a 3-3-3-1 framework that cuts permitting timelines and brings certainty to builders and families alike.
- Strategic Density – Focusing new housing around transit corridors and job centres to support complete, livable communities.
- Smarter Suburban Growth – Supporting thriving new communities like Silverton and Cornerstone with updated planning tools and modern infrastructure standards.
- Restoring Vibrancy in Established Communities – Encouraging respectful, community-led density to revitalize aging neighbourhoods without losing their character.
Thiessen, who attended the BILD Calgary Unlocking Doors Summit on Monday, said the conversations he heard reinforced the urgency of action. “We can’t keep pushing people out of Calgary because they can’t afford to live here. If we want a vibrant, prosperous city, we need to build homes that match the reality of people’s lives - in every neighbourhood, at every income level.”
“This isn’t about slogans,” he added. “It’s about results. Calgary has the tools and talent to build more housing. What we need now is leadership with the urgency to act.”
City Council has failed to address housing affordability even by their own standards set in the Housing Strategy:
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Seventeen months after City Council approved Calgary’s Housing Strategy, City Administration reports that the city still falls well below the national average for non-market housing supply compared to Canada’s largest cities.
On the market side, the benchmark price of a home is 5.5 times higher than Calgary’s median annual household income, making homeownership increasingly out of reach. - Other major Canadian cities issue development permits in less than half the time it takes in Calgary, highlighting critical inefficiencies in our planning processes.
- 74% of Calgarians say homeownership is simply not attainable, reflecting widespread concern about affordability across the city.
The Calgary Party invites all Calgarians to read the full Housing Toolkit and join the movement to build a city that works for everyone.
Click here to download the Housing Toolkit.
For media inquiries or to schedule an interview:
Lucie Morrison
403.875.0578
[email protected]