Appeals & Tribunals plan and budget
This service provides an impartial, open, and transparent process for citizens and businesses to challenge property and business assessments, decisions of the development and subdivision authorities, and other decisions made by The City of Calgary with respect to licences and community standards.
The Appeals & Tribunals service supports governance, administration and operations of The City's tribunals:
Our customers
- Citizen, business, and community appellants
- Legal representatives/professional agents
- Assessment and Taxation business unit
- Community Planning business unit
- Calgary Community Standards business unit
- Calgary Assessment Review Board
- Calgary Subdivision and Development Appeal Board
- Calgary Licence and Community Standards Appeal Board
Our partners
- Law department
- Customer Service and Communications business unit
- Information Technology business unit
- Alberta Land and Property Rights Tribunal
- External legal counsel
Value to Calgarians
- establish and support tribunals to hear appeals and complaints from businesses, citizens and communities
- empowers the public to present their concerns and be heard
- procedural fairness and natural justice are ensured
- supports public trust and confidence in the appeal and complaint process
What we deliver
A process for citizens, businesses, and communities to be heard when they disagree with certain decisions made by The City's Administration.
Budget breakdown
Operating and capital budgets explained
The budgets you see here are expenditures net of recoveries.
The City develops two budgets to create impact aligned with Council’s Strategic Direction:
- The four-year (2023-2026) operating plans and budgets
- The five-year (2023-2027+) capital plans and budgets
The operating budget includes revenues, recoveries and spending related to ongoing operations. These include:
- Salaries, wages and benefits.
- Day to day programs, maintenance and services.
- Administration costs (e.g., insurance).
- Fuel
- Utilities
- Capital financing costs.
The City's total net operating budget is zero. This means we budget to collect the revenue needed to deliver services to Calgarians — no more, no less. We collect this revenue through property taxes and other sources.
The capital budget pays for long-lived assets. These provide the foundation for the services Calgarians rely on. They include:
- Maintenance of current infrastructure (e.g., bridges, buildings and playgrounds).
- Upgrades to existing community infrastructure.
- New infrastructure to provide services in areas that are underserved (e.g., Green Line).
- New infrastructure for growing areas of the city.
Learn more about our 2023-2026 Service Plans and Budgets.
See how the budget has been adjusted since November 2022
Measuring performance
We are measuring our performance in five areas. Each value is the goal we expect to reach by 2026.
What we've heard
Public engagement and research indicates that tribunals and appeal processes need to be convenient, responsive, legislatively compliant and informative. Access to justice must be impartial, fair and transparent, through the consistent application of rules and availability of information. The process for appeals needs to be as simple as possible, and continue to be affordable. There must be continual improvement of efficiency and transparency.
Complainants want to continue to be able to participate in tribunal hearings virtually. For 2022 Assessment Review Board hearings, for example, videoconference, teleconference, and written hearings were preferred by complainants in 83 per cent of cases.
What we're watching
- Complaint settlements – High rates of withdrawn appeals introduce volatility to hearing scheduling and questions about how to best resource tribunals and retain tribunal members
- Virtual hearings – Appellants prefer the convenience of virtual hearings, which contributes to efficiency, but also creates challenges to engaging tribunal members, and to ensure fairness for those without access to technology.
- Obstacles to justice access – Lower service demand means we need to better understand what, if any, barriers citizens face in accessing justice, including social equity considerations.
- Governance and innovation – Tribunal modernization means respecting independence while ensuring tribunals are structured, empowered and accountable for efficiency and effectiveness, and considering new processes and technologies to better serve citizens.
- Justice modernization – Pressures on the Canadian justice system have resulted in less serious matters being transferred to tribunals.
Our initiatives
What we plan to do
We will continue to support the administration of justice and provide participants with fair, affordable and accessible options to challenge specific City of Calgary decisions.
How we're going to get there
- Increase efficiency and adjust to varying volumes of appeals across all boards by training all tribunal clerks to support all three tribunals, rather than the specific-to-a-tribunal training approach that has been used historically.
- Reduce barriers to participation and improve access to justice by investigating, planning and potentially expanding communication and outreach activities.
- Adhere to legislative requirements and provide timely service to Calgarians by continuing to render and publish adjudicative decisions within the specified timeframes.
- Provide an improved public user experience by upgrading the Assessment Review Board's file management software.
- Ensure accessible processes by providing multiple channels for parties to file complaints and/or appeals, including in-person, online, mail, email and secure physical drop box.