Can you still build a rowhouse in Calgary? For most lots, no. The citywide rule was repealed.

It depends on your lot. Calgary repealed the citywide rezoning on April 8, 2026, and the change takes effect August 4, 2026. After that date, about 99% of the lots that were rezoned in 2024 go back to their older, lower-density zoning. On most of those, a rowhouse or multiplex is no longer allowed by right. But some lots keep the R-CG rowhouse zoning: any lot that already has an approved permit, a project underway, or an owner-initiated rezoning after August 6, 2024. So the honest answer is that you must check your specific lot's zoning, because the answer is now different from one property to the next.

Calgary City Council voted 12–3 to repeal the citywide rezoning on April 8, 2026. The vote itself did not change any zoning that day. The changes take effect on August 4, 2026. On that date the rezoned lots that do not qualify for an exemption return to the zoning they had before the 2024 rezoning. The gap between the April vote and the August effective date gave owners a window to apply under the R-CG rules before they were pulled back.

In 2024 Calgary made a district called R-CG the default base zoning on most residential lots across the whole city. R-CG stands for a grade-oriented infill district: it allows rowhouses and townhouses, plus secondary suites, which works out to roughly 3 to 4 homes on a standard lot. Before this, an owner who wanted to build a rowhouse usually had to apply for a separate rezoning, which meant a public hearing and months of uncertainty. The 2024 change removed that step for small multi-home buildings and applied the same base rules citywide, which is why people called it "blanket" rezoning.

It reverts to whatever low-density district it held before the 2024 rezoning. The city is bringing back the earlier residential districts under Land Use Bylaw 1P2007: districts such as R-C1, R-C1L, R-C1N, R-C2, R-1, R-1N, R-2, and R-CGex. Most single-detached neighbourhoods go back to a district that allows a single house (often with a secondary suite), not a rowhouse. The exact district depends on your address, so the only reliable way to know is to look up your parcel in the City of Calgary's zoning records.

No, if you meet the exemption rules. Lots keep their R-CG zoning if they received a permit or subdivision approval before August 4, 2026, if an application was submitted before the first reading of the repeal bylaw, or if the owner applied for the rezoning themselves after August 6, 2024. In plain terms, projects that were already approved or already in the pipeline are protected. What reverts are the lots that were rezoned automatically in 2024 but never had a project attached to them.

Yes. Council did not only repeal the citywide default. It also tightened the R-CG district itself for the lots that stay. The maximum number of homes on an R-CG lot drops from 4 to 3. Rowhouses and townhouses are no longer allowed in the middle of a block, so in practice only corner lots and the lots next to a corner can hold a rowhouse. Council also lowered the maximum building height (from 11 m to 10 m) and cut lot coverage (from 60% to 55%), and adjusted setbacks and parking. So even a lot that keeps R-CG can build less than it could before.

The short answer is politics, not housing numbers. The 2024 rezoning passed after the longest public hearing in the city's history, where about 736 people spoke over roughly 100 hours and thousands more filed written objections. Many established neighbourhoods opposed it. Blanket rezoning then became a major issue in the October 2025 municipal election. A new mayor, Jeromy Farkas, and a new council took office having promised to repeal and replace it, and they had the votes. The result was that a policy which had already produced hundreds of homes was reversed because the political majority changed.

By late 2025 the city reported that the rezoning had enabled 478 development permits, creating 1,904 units, in a little over a year. That is a real number of homes, not a projection. It is one of the reasons the repeal is such a clear case study: unlike some reforms that legalized density on paper but built almost nothing, Calgary's change was producing housing when it was reversed. Those already-approved units are largely protected by the exemption rules.

Jeromy Farkas won the Calgary mayor's race in the October 2025 municipal election, by a narrow margin over Sonya Sharp and incumbent Jyoti Gondek. During the campaign he said Calgary needs more homes but argued that the citywide rezoning created instability rather than certainty. He promised to repeal the blanket rezoning bylaw and replace it with a more targeted approach that supports gentle density in specific places rather than everywhere at once. After the April 2026 repeal vote he described the public hearing as "direct democracy in action."

Council framed the repeal as "repeal and replace," so a more targeted approach is expected rather than a full return to the old system forever. As of mid-2026 the specifics were still being worked out, and council directed staff to look at further R-CG changes at later hearings, including a possible cut to R-CG maximum density. What matters for an owner today is that there is no citywide by-right rowhouse rule anymore, and any replacement plan is a future process, not something you can build under yet.

The rowhouse district is R-CG in Calgary's land use bylaw. The districts your lot may revert to come from Land Use Bylaw 1P2007 and include R-C1, R-C1L, R-C1N, R-C2, R-1, R-1N, R-2, and R-CGex. To find which one applies to your address, use the City of Calgary's zoning search or the official rezoning project page. Because the answer now differs lot by lot after the repeal, do not assume your neighbour's zoning matches yours. Confirm your own parcel from the city's record.

Calgary is the exception. Most of the reform stories in Canada move in one direction: toward allowing more homes. British Columbia legalized up to 3 to 6 homes on most single-family lots province-wide, and Edmonton kept its citywide "up to 8 units" rule after debate. Calgary is the one large Canadian city that adopted a citywide upzoning and then reversed it. That makes it the clearest example in the country of how a housing reform can be undone when a new political majority takes over, even after the reform has started producing homes.

First, look up your parcel's current zoning in the City of Calgary's records, because after August 4, 2026 the answer is no longer the same across the city. If your lot kept R-CG through an approved permit or a project underway, remember the tightened rules: a maximum of 3 homes, no mid-block rowhouses, lower height and coverage. If your lot reverted, you are back to lower-density rules and would need a separate rezoning to build a rowhouse, with the public hearing that comes with it. The main lesson is that zoning certainty in Calgary is lower than it looks, so confirm the current rule before you price or plan any project.