That's fair, let's punch the one issue down then.
The City's chief housing officer says that by the end of the year the city will be short 42,000 houses by the end of 2025, even with Calgary leading all other cities in building. Even worse is that they say "Record Construction, But the Gap Is Still Growing".
When demand is so far beyond the supply, the suppliers are in control, not the buyers. That is econ 101. I am not sure why you keep arguing the opposite but there is nothing really to support your position.
Also, 42,000 sounds like more than enough opportunity to stand up a public home building department that is leaning on the multiple federal programs that are available right now. I highly doubt that any private developers would slow down with that big of an opportunity gap still available for them to price gauge buyers.
But probably an even bigger deal is the federal records showing that "
Housing affordability in Canada is getting worse". This is a big deal for politicians, which creates motive to do more than just wait for the market to sort itself out.
A public developer is a win/win for the city as it can help tackle the massive inventory gap and it can leverage the federal funding options better than any of the private developers would. The Apartment Construction Loan Program or the new prefab home program. There are a lot of options that would be of interest to Calgary but not to the private developers.
Probably the biggest thing to consider though about the way blanket rezoning has been proposed and executed is that it is now a primary talking point for almost every challenger in the upcoming election. I am not a single issue voter but there are a LOT of people who will cast their vote because of this one issue and the results could be scary.
Hopefully the winners of the election will work to roll back and refine the strategy instead of abolishing it outright because that would mean we have the more progressive options instead of the right and super-right parties.