Calgary’s target for a multi-disciplinary development permit decision is 120 days.
Getting a house approved in Calgary has become slow in ways nobody sat down and intended.
Key facts
- Calgary targets 120 days for a multi-disciplinary development permit decision, 180 days for a land use amendment and 90 days for residential infill.
- By the end of June 2025, 85 appeals had been filed with the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board following the citywide rezoning decision.
- The average gap between an appeal notice and a merit hearing ran 68 days.
- Industry estimates put carrying costs near $500 a day per property, roughly $34,000 over that average wait.
What the City’s Own Numbers Say
Calgary publishes its approval targets, and they are worth reading. A multi-disciplinary development permit decision carries a 120 day target from receipt of application. A land use amendment, what most people call a rezoning, carries 180 days. Residential infill decisions target 90. Those are targets, not deadlines, and the distinction matters to anyone carrying financing while they wait.
The appeal side tells its own story. Following the citywide rezoning decision, appeals to the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board climbed sharply, with 85 filed by the end of June 2025 and the bulk of them attached to discretionary use approvals. The average gap between an appeal notice and a merit hearing ran 68 days. Industry estimates put carrying costs around $500 a day per property, which works out to roughly $34,000 over that average wait, before a single decision is rendered.
Red Tape Piles Up One Defensible Layer at a Time
Six months to reach a yes protects no one, and the courts have now confirmed councils own these calls. Red tape rarely arrives in one piece. It accumulates, each layer defensible the day it was added, none of them ever revisited. Nobody drew up a system where a builder waits half a year for permission to start something that takes four months to finish. It assembled itself.
Calgary is still the large Canadian city where a working family has the best shot at a first home, even as condo prices absorb the correction, and that advantage is real. It is also not permanent. Every month added to an approval timeline lands eventually in a purchase price, because carrying costs do not evaporate, they get passed along to whoever signs at the end.
Targets Are Not Deadlines
The fix is simple, though not easy. Hard decision deadlines instead of soft targets would force the system to either meet them or explain itself. Calgary already publishes its targets, so the numbers exist. Turning them into deadlines is the step that is left.
A city that wants housing supply has to treat approval speed as part of the supply, not as an administrative detail that happens somewhere else.
Ask your city councillor whether Calgary will set hard deadlines on development permit decisions instead of targets.
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