As Edmonton refines its vision for livability in the face of a housing crunch and the climate crisis, city officials are contending with pushback from residents and developers, along with a warning from its former mayor.
City council recently passed the second reading of Edmonton’s proposal to revamp its district planning policy, reports the CBC News. But in a “disappointing” turn of events, officials had to amend it to address residents’ concerns about 15-minute cities—ones that stem from widespread disinformation about the concept.
The new policy and associated plans divide Edmonton into 15 districts, replacing “a patchwork of individual neighbourhood plans, some of which are decades old.” It is rooted in Edmonton’s City Plan, which was adopted in 2020 and envisions a “liveable city”, where people can generally meet their daily needs within their district and within a 15-minute travel time.
“Although the choice will remain to make those trips by auto, through implementation of The City Plan it will make sense and be more pleasant to travel by foot, bike, or transit to get to work, pick up groceries, go to the park, run errands, or pick up a coffee,” write the plan’s authors. “There will be many ways to get around and many places to go nearby.”
Conspiracy Theories Breed Fear
But during a series of public hearings set up to explain the new policy, residents expressed concerns that the plan would restrict and monitor their movements. That fear has no evidence to support it, and rather is born from conspiracies and misinformation, Timothy Caulfield, Canadian research chair in health law and policy at the University of Alberta, told Global News.
Nevertheless, the council added an amendment to clarify the point, writing: “The District Policy and the District Plans shall not restrict freedom of movement, association, and commerce in accordance with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said the amendment would reassure some residents, adding that if it helped comfort them, he saw no harm in it.
But Caulfield disagreed. “It’s normalizing conspiracy thinking, it’s normalizing the embrace of misinformation, and this can only do harm to a democracy,” he said.
Several councillors expressed frustration and sadness that such an amendment should be necessary. Erin Rutherford was one of them, pointing out that the Charter already fully protects the kinds of freedoms that 15-minute conspiracy theorists present as threatened.
“It’s disappointing that we’re here today, that we even have to put this in this document,” Rutherford told CBC News. “Quite frankly, it shows an erosion of trust in our democracy as a whole, I think. And that’s really sad.”
Councillor Aaron Paquette asserted the value of the statement, noting that Edmonton continues to emerge from a cloud of mistrust in government that exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic—mistrust that frequently revolved around restrictions on movement and assembly, and still needs to be addressed.
Developers Balk at Sprawl Restrictions
Earlier in June, Edmonton’s planners faced pushback from developers over their efforts to limit sprawl, reported CBC News. The builders warned an urban planning committee that the city’s substantial completion approach, which prioritizes finishing all infrastructure development within city limits before building anything more in its outskirts, would affect housing affordability.
“By creating artificial curbs to bringing on new supply of housing, we end up creating a situation where not enough houses are being produced for the population growth that is coming,” developer Adil Kodian told CBC’s Edmonton AM in a recent interview. “We’re already in the middle of a housing crisis and it does not look like the growth in population in Edmonton is going to stem anytime soon.”
Accommodating another million-plus residents within Edmonton’s current limits is part of the city’s 2020 plan, but people do appear to be arriving faster than expected. The Edmonton metro area saw its biggest year-over-year population increase on record last year, bringing the city’s total population to 1.56 million people, reported CBC.
The plan also sets out to limit emissions, so pursuing “substantial completion” would be critical to achieving Edmonton’s climate goals, Jacob Kumar, co-chair of the city’s Energy Transition and Climate Resilience Committee, told CBC.
City administration wants to focus on the developing areas now, and move on to lands annexed in 2019 for development only in 2029.
However, developers argue that planning and building takes years, so halting the process now would slow them down. “This is a big concern because of the length of time that it takes to assemble the land and then to go through the entire planning process,” said Brad Armstrong, vice-president of community development for Qualico Communities.
Ex- Mayor Urges Climate Resilience
Don Iveson, who served as Edmonton’s mayor from 2013 to 2021, shares concerns about where and how new homes are built in the burgeoning city. Now serving as co-chair of the Task Force for Housing and Climate (TFHC), he advises policy-makers in a recent post that “to avoid a maladapted housing future, we need to be building homes in a way that minimizes vulnerability to extreme weather impacts.”
“Ultimately, new homes must be resilient to the extreme weather we’re going to see in the decades ahead—anything less would be negligence,” he writes. “Because the most unaffordable home would be one that needs to be constantly repaired, or rebuilt, after a predictable disaster.”
With time at a premium, he added, Canada “needs to make it far easier to build,” but any building can only be allowed to proceed if it is designed, placed, and made, to be “climate-proof.”
“Short-sighted decisions on location or build quality” are simply unacceptable in a world so beset by climate impacts like flooding and wildfire, Iveson writes, adding that last year saw C$3.1 billion in insured losses, a staggering amount “consistent with an exponentially rising trend year over year.”
Governments at all levels need to do two big things, Iveson says: “urgently require climate-proof structures through adoption of stronger building and safety codes,” and “immediately stop approving buildings in high-risk areas.” Failure to do so, he warns, will imperil Canada’s economy.
He points to the TFHC’s Blueprint for More and Better Housing as a resource that provides 140 recommendations for what all levels of government can do to build climate-adapted homes, quickly and affordably.
I’m reminded of people in the U.S. who vote against clearly beneficial policies and regulatory changes like “ObamaCare”.
Start with teaching children that “research” involves more than 5 minutes on Google, and “critical thinking” involves more than fearfully slamming every idea forwarded by government.