Calgary residents fight against blanket zoning change with ‘restrictive covenants’

A group of residents in the Lake Bonavista community in southeast Calgary hope their latest attempt to stop the city’s comprehensive zoning change will thwart developers’ efforts to create change in their community.

Karen Robinson has lived in the community since she was a child. She spearheaded a campaign called the Restrictive Covenants Initiative for Lake Bonavista.

A restrictive covenant is a restriction that landowners can add to their land title to prevent the use of the land, to protect it, unless a change is legally agreed upon by all parties involved, which has proven difficult.

“The more of these we have on any given street, the more assurance we have as homeowners about what can and cannot be done on our own streets,” Robinson said.

He says this gives residents a legal way to protect their properties from future changes and wants others to join in.

“We were just looking for a way to come together as a community to preserve the nature of our neighborhood, a place with single-family homes, good-sized lots, mature trees and small lots on the streets,” he said.

Robinson says he doesn’t want his society to change.

“I moved to Lake Bonavista when I was four years old, lived here with my family, went to school in the community here and then left for a few years, but then had the opportunity to come back to Lake Bonavista and raise my own family here,” he said.

“It’s definitely a neighborhood that’s very near and dear to my heart and I would like to see it preserved.”

He adds that because it’s one of the oldest communities in Calgary, many residents have never left.

“It’s particularly distressing for them to think that the neighborhood they’ve called home for so many years could be rendered unrecognizable,” he said.

“If there are multiple dwellings and townhomes, and particularly if developers can build townhomes on multiple pieces of property and do so through a land council.”

‘They are fighting back’

The residents hired attorney Curtis Marble, a partner at Carbert Waite LLP, to prepare documentation for $500 to include in the title deeds.

“There has definitely been an increase in the number of people contacting us,” Marble said.

“It’s not trying to prevent the densification of Lake Bonavista, it’s allowing it (secondary suites). What it’s doing is setting some parameters for what type of new development is allowed to increase density on the lots that the owners choose to participate in.”

Marble says about 20 per cent of the community supports the idea, and eight communities in Calgary have sought legal advice from him.

“They’re fighting back. It’s a way of fighting back and making a point,” said District 1 councilwoman Sonya Sharp.

“You can’t blame people for wanting to hold on to the biggest investment in their lives, and sometimes that’s their home.”

Sharp was questioned Monday about several communities that took this step. Many criticized the city council’s decision this year after it voted in favor of a citywide zoning change.

But Sharp adds that restrictive covenants may not be the best option.

“These issues could be dealt with by a new landowner, a developer, and they might not carry much weight in the city,” he said.

“If you want to go to a point, a length, to make sure you maintain a certain building form, you don’t do a restrictive covenant, you do a direct control. So you get a group of people together and say, ‘This is a direct control, and we’re applying to be single-family.’ You’re going to have to come to the city council to get that land use approved, but that would carry a lot more weight than a restrictive covenant.”

Sharp acknowledged that this would require a majority vote of the council.

Robinson says 70 households have signed up since the first meeting, but hundreds more have contacted him to ask to join in. They plan to provide an update at the initiative’s Oct. 1 meeting.