The City of Calgary Asbestos Abatement Information form

The City of Calgary will not release a building permit or a demolition permit until an Asbestos Abatement Information form has been filed for the project. The City's demolition guidance says the form is needed for houses built before 1990. The form itself is worded more broadly — it covers buildings to be renovated or demolished — so if you are working on an older commercial building, ask the City directly rather than assuming.

It has to be in before the permit is released, not after. That is the part that catches people out, because the work has to happen first.

What the form actually says

It is one page with two boxes, and you tick one.

Box one — all materials with the potential to release asbestos fibres have been removed from the project area, and the waste went to an approved landfill.

Box two — there are no materials with the potential to release asbestos fibres in the project area.

Then you sign it, with your name, the firm you represent, and an address.

Why you cannot just tick box two and move on

Both boxes are a statement of fact to the City, signed by a named person on behalf of a named firm.

To tick box two honestly, somebody has to have looked — properly. That means bulk samples analyzed by an accredited laboratory, not a guess based on the age of the house. A 1978 bungalow can have asbestos in the ceiling texture, the floor tile, the tile mastic, the drywall joint compound, the pipe wrap and the vermiculite in the attic. Those are six different materials and each one needs testing.

To tick box one, the material has to be gone — removed under the Alberta OHS Code, bagged, and taken to Shepard Landfill under a City of Calgary Industrial Waste Permit, by appointment, with a manifest. A homeowner cannot get that permit. That is the wall most people hit.

Who fills it in

The form does not name a role. It asks for a name, a firm and an address, so in practice it is signed by whoever did the work and can stand behind it — the abatement contractor or the consultant.

If you are on a job with a general contractor, get it in writing who is filing this form and when. Permits sit for weeks because the owner thought the GC was handling it and the GC thought the owner was.

We complete and sign it for the work we do, and we hand you the laboratory report and the disposal manifest that back it up.

This is not the same as the Alberta OHS notification

Two different things, and they get mixed up constantly.

You may well need both. The City form is about your permit. The OHS notification is about the removal work itself.

How long it takes

The form itself does not take any time. The City publishes no processing timeline for it, because there is nothing to process — it is a document you attach to your permit application. What takes time is the work that has to happen before anyone can sign it.

Once your application is in, the City's own published figures are 7 days for a demolition permit review, and 7 to 21 calendar days for a residential improvement permit depending on complexity. Those are targets rather than promises — the City says plainly they depend on volume and on how complete your application is.

Which means the honest answer is this. If you call before you apply, the testing runs while you are pulling the rest of your paperwork together and the form is ready when you submit. If you apply first and get told the form is missing, you have added a week or two to your own project for nothing.

Applications go through apply.calgary.ca and you will need a myID account.

What it costs

If it turns out there is no asbestos, you are paying for testing only. Our prices are published: $225 for the sampling visit in Calgary plus $85 per sample, so a typical three-sample test is $480. Vermiculite samples are $165 each because they need a more sensitive laboratory method. Rush turnaround adds $60 per sample. All prices exclude GST. See the full price list.

If asbestos is found, removal is priced as a fixed itemized amount after a site visit. We credit the $225 sampling fee against the removal if you go ahead within 90 days.

What to do if your permit is stuck

1. Call us and tell us which permit you have applied for and the year the building was built
2. We sample the materials your project will disturb, under a documented chain of custody
3. The laboratory reports what is in them — you get their report, with their name on it
4. If it is clean, the form is filed with box two ticked and your permit moves
5. If it is not, we quote the removal, do it under containment, dispose under permit with a manifest, and file the form with box one ticked

We do not certify a material as asbestos-free ourselves. We collect the samples and the accredited laboratory says what is in them. That is deliberate, and it is what makes the paperwork stand up.