Public Notification Enhancement Project: Keeping Neighbours in the Know

Public Notification Enhancement Project: Keeping Neighbours in the Know January 10, 2026 The Federation of Calgary Communities shared the Public Notification Enhancement Project: Keeping Neighbours in the Know in the August, September, and October ‘Your Moment in Planning‘. The City hosted (2) two community association to the Co-Design Workshop to brainstorm and ideate about enhancing the public notification system.  The Public Notification Enhancement Project: Keeping Neighbours in the Know team, shared with the Federation the overall engagement summary report, read PDF. Participants who attended the workshops should have received summary notes to their specific session.  Read the Summary Report PROJECT UPDATE & NEXT STEPS In August 2025, we let you know about the City of Calgary project to enhance public notification systems to help Calgarians be better informed about Development Permit and Land Use applications. This project, in response to Council’s directed recommendations in the Rezoning for Housing land use amendments in 2024,  aims to improve the City’s public notification systems, digitally (i.e Development Map (DMap) and Calgary.ca webpages) and physically through the in-person mailed letters and onsite notice boards. From August until December, the project team completed design research, holding a series of ideation workshops with City staff, Calgarians and Community Association representatives. Attendees generated new and innovative solutions that support community residents and neighbours living next door to newly proposed developments. The recommended solutions to update existing communication tools (Notice Boards, letters to adjacent properties, DMap/Calgary.ca) are being planned to be implemented and are anticipated to be presented to Infrastructure and Planning committee (IPC) on Feb 11th, 2026. These will include: Updates to incorporate best practice in plain language and accessibility; New information and clearer explanations related to application process, roles, responsibilities and approximate timelines (i.e FAQ’s etc.); and Improved visual and graphic design for clearer messaging and a better user experience. Additionally, the project team is continuing to investigate the recommendations from workshop participants that include earlier notification, better progress updates, and an audit of notice board compliance. The project team is now progressing to the next phase of the project to design, test and prototype new ideas that were generated during the workshops. Some of these ideas include new types of door-to-door notifications, community outreach models and newly designed informational resources (both paper based and digital formats).  Please note there will be opportunities to participate in the upcoming workshops to design and test these ideas. Stay tuned for future notifications. If you have any other questions about this work or would like more information on how to get involved, feel free to reach out to Carrie Jewitt at Carrie.Jewitt@calgary.ca or Jennifer Crack at Jennifer.Crack@calgary.ca.