Council is meeting today to discuss how to further involved Calgarians in the city’s budget process.
Mayor Naheed Nenshi said the majority of the day would be spent discussing ways to incorporate more citizens into creating the business plan.
“We want to ensure that the budget is created in a participatory and inclusive process,” he said before the meeting began. “That means involving the decision makers but it also means involving more Calgarians.”
Along with budget discussions, Nenshi said council would be discussing the standard development agreement, which determines how much developers pay to build on the edges of the city.
He said the agreement needs to be changed.
“New communities are not paying for their own growth,” he said. “The challenge we have is every time we put up a house in a new community at the fringes of the city, that house costs us more than we ever get back in a lifetime of property taxes on that home and we put up thousands of these a year.”
Nenshi said council will be meeting monthly for strategic planning sessions.
