Opinion: Calgary can’t build its way out of housing crisis if fees keep outpacing reality |
Calgary is growing exponentially. The city welcomed more than 80,000 people in 2024 to the Calgary Metropolitan Area. People are moving here for opportunity, affordability and quality of life. Yet, for all our competitive advantages, the economics of building new rental housing in this city are tightening. That should worry all of us. If we are serious about addressing the housing shortage, governments need to confront a hard truth: fees and taxes on new housing have risen far beyond inflation, and beyond what can reasonably be justified as “growth paying for growth.”
A new national report commissioned by NAIOP, Canada’s commercial real estate development association, lays out the numbers starkly. Across the country, government-imposed fees on new rental construction have climbed between 290 per cent and 628 per cent since 2010. Calgary and Edmonton do not face the same absolute fee levels as Toronto or Vancouver, but the trend line is unmistakable: Calgary’s fees have risen 536 per cent — more than 13........