Tag: land development

Edmonton should eliminate the RF1 zone to advance infill development

City Council should eliminate the RF1 zone and rezone all of those areas to RF3. Such a move would raise the base zoning for residential neighbourhoods across the city, moving the discussion around accommodating Edmonton’s growth from “how does infill fit in” to “infill is a key part of our entire city’s future, let’s make it work.” Such a decision would make it clear that the entire city needs to evolve together as we grow.

This is not a new idea. It has been proposed before, such as by the Infill Development Edmonton Association. More recently, Councillor Michael Walters has been in the news, making the case for increasing density throughout the city rather than just in specific neighbourhoods:

“We’ve created this sense of entitlement that my neighbourhood is a single-family neighbourhood. No infill should be permitted here,” said Walters. “I don’t think that any neighbourhood is entitled to have low density.”

As long as the majority of our mature neighbourhoods are zoned RF1, we’ll always have an “us vs. them” problem. I mean, just look at what one Kenilworth resident told The Journal:

“Duplexes? No, we don’t want that,” added June Lunn, who moved in five years ago. “Those kind of things are low income. I think older neighbourhoods should just be left how they are. That’s why we live here. If you can’t afford it, go elsewhere,” she added. “I’m not trying to be rude, but we work hard for where we live.”

Entitlement and NIMBYism at its finest. But this isn’t just about building an inclusive city. This is about accommodating the amazing growth Edmonton is experiencing and is projected to continue experiencing. Suburban neighbourhoods alone just aren’t going to cut it. Mayor Iveson wrote about this today:

“We simply can’t continue to build our city and accommodate our growth by developing new neighbourhoods alone. Our suburban neighbourhoods provide great homes, communities and amenities for Edmontonians, but they can’t be the only place where Edmonton’s growth and change occurs. The way we’ll continue to be able to grow a great city in a strong region is by enabling diverse housing options across our entire city. Infill is a crucial piece in building up our established neighbourhoods and further embracing the urban shift that is already underway in Edmonton.”

Infill

The fact is, Edmonton is behind on one of the key goals set forth in The Way We Grow, Edmonton’s municipal development plan. The plan targets that “a minimum of 25 percent of city-wide housing unit growth locate in the Downtown and mature neighbourhoods” and near LRT and transit centres. That’s infill, and while it is happening, it isn’t happening quickly enough. We’re no where close to 25% and without some sort of bold action, we’ll never get there.

As a result, the City has now published its first major report on the topic. Edmonton’s Infill Roadmap is “a two year work plan to advance infill.” Many speakers today described the roadmap as “a good start” and felt it adequately captured the public consultation that went on during its development. But the sentiment was clearly that it doesn’t go far enough.

The roadmap identifies 23 actions, including 8 that the City considers priority actions to begin immediately. “They are key activities that are needed to remove barriers to the development of more new housing and to proactively manage growth,” the roadmap says. The actions are broadly categorized into communication, collaboration, knowledge, rules, and process. As is typical with these kinds of reports, the actions are mostly baby steps, especially those in the rules category.

Action 15 says, “change the RF1 (single detached) zone to allow the subdivision of properties into narrower lots that are half the average width of the other lots on the block (but not less than 25 feet wide).” Action 16 says, “create more opportunities for row housing in the RF3 (small scale infill development) zone by removing location restrictions and changing the site regulations that currently limit this form of infill on RF3 lots.”

Council could just let the roadmap run its course, and maybe learn from that to agree on the next set of actions in two years. And eventually, after many years, we’d have transformed the RF1 zone into something that better enables infill. But I think Council needs to be bolder. The time for baby steps is over.

rf3 zones

There are just 16 neighbourhoods that currently feature predominately RF3 zoning. The vast majority of our neighbourhoods are zoned RF1. But as Administration readily admitted today, RF1 is no longer relevant. It’s just not how we develop neighbourhoods anymore. New areas of the city feature greater diversity than just single detached homes, and have higher density than mature, RF1 neighbourhoods as a result. If the RF1 zone is no longer relevant, then why keep it around?

Moving the baseline to RF3 is not a silver bullet. It also doesn’t mean that every new home built is going to be a townhouse. But it does remove a key barrier to infill, and it does make the desired mix of housing possible. It would allow land prices to stabilize, making infill more affordable.

Ambleside
Medium density housing in Ambleside

Council repeatedly asked the two panels of speakers today for advice on how to get the public onside with more infill and any potential zoning changes. They talked about “social acceptance” and noted they’re the ones that field the angry calls.

Here’s the thing: some people are going to complain no matter what you do. There will always be the June Lunn’s of the world. As was pointed out in response to Council’s questions, waiting to get everyone on board prevents action. You’ll never get everyone on board. It’s important to keep the dialogue ongoing of course, and to give Edmontonians an opportunity to be heard. But that doesn’t mean we have to keep pressing pause. Take action, and clearly inform citizens about why that decision was made and what it means. Council was elected to make the best decisions on behalf of citizens for our city’s future, and if that means infill throughout the city, then let’s get on with it already.

Today, Executive Committee passed a couple of motions to move this work forward. First, they asked for a report “outlining options to overhaul our suite of low density zones (RF1-RF4)” which could include consolidation, changes to the Mature Neighbourhood Overlay, and information about incentives that could be offered to support increased densification. We should hear back on that in January. Second, they voted to allow garage and garden suites and to change RF1 to allow narrower lots not less than 25 feet wide. A public hearing on the changes will take place by January. Furthermore, they asked for an update on progress with the Edmonton Infill Roadmap by March 2015.

That’s all good, and as we head into a very busy capital budget season, it’s probably enough for now. But I’d like to see Council go further when they pick this back up in the new year. Let’s get rid of the RF1 zone, either by rezoning those areas to RF3, or by coming up with a new consolidated zone to achieve our infill objectives. Let’s take a bold step forward.

For more on today’s discussion, check out this post from Elise Stolte.

Why hasn’t there been any public involvement for the Growth Coordination Strategy?

One of the most important sections in The Way We Grow, Edmonton’s Municipal Development Plan, is the one that deals with the Growth Coordination Strategy. It is section 3.1 that earned the document the nickname “The Way We Sprawl” for specifying that just 25% of housing growth should happen in mature neighbourhoods. That shortcoming aside, the section is important because it aims to make land development in Edmonton more sustainable, predictable, and strategic. Section 3.1.1.6 explains the purpose of the Growth Coordination Strategy:

Develop a growth coordination strategy to address timing and phasing of new residential growth in developing and planned neighbourhoods. The strategy will relate to the City’s strategic goals, current and future public infrastructure investment, long term financial sustainability and the amount, location and pace of population and employment growth; and will establish:

  • Expectations for completing developing neighbourhoods
  • Expectations for initiating new Neighbourhood Structure Plans

Another important point is found in section 3.1.1.10:

The Growth Coordination Strategy will address demand for land, housing units, and housing choice at the regional, city-wide and sector level.

You might find the topic kind of dry but make no mistake, ensuring Edmonton can “manage future public obligations and growth opportunities” is of great importance to our city.

Edmonton from Above
Photo by Dave Cournoyer

Despite the importance of the Growth Coordination Strategy, there are just two full-time employees at the City working on it and thus far there has been no official opportunity for public involvement. The first public draft (version 6) of the strategy (PDF) was released in May, but I understand based on conversations with City employees that that is not the same document slated to go to Council in November. A new draft is currently under development that reduces the scope of the strategy, primarily by stripping it of any objective related to infill development. A similar document focused on mature and developing areas would be left to an as yet unplanned and unfunded follow-up project. That means that Council will be considering a document that no citizen has had the opportunity to provide input on, not to mention one that does not seem to meet the requirements specified in the MDP.

No one I talked to knows (or refused to say) why the timeline for this strategy was set so aggressively. There is no doubt in my mind that powerful, well-funded behind-the-scenes lobbying has taken place. After all, without the Growth Coordination Strategy, Food & Ag Strategy, and Integrated Infrastructure Management Plan, new development in Edmonton’s urban growth areas cannot take place. Furthermore, we know from the January 26, 2011 Executive Committee meeting (see this report) that the “discussions began between Administration and Industry on the content of the Growth Coordination Strategy” as early as July 2010.  I think that pressure from “Industry” partially explains why there hasn’t been any public involvement, but it doesn’t explain why the City has put so little funding into the development of this important document.

The Calgary Approach

Calgary has a number of similar documents and initiatives underway. One is called Geodemographics but the big one appears to be the Corporate Framework for Growth and Change:

The Corporate Framework for Growth and Change will guide the future sequencing of growth in Calgary to ensure investments in infrastructure and services are within the financial capacity of The City. The Corporate Framework for Growth and Change is an integral part of Calgary’s Municipal Development Plan (MDP) and growth management.

Note both the timeline and frequency of public involvement for the development of that document. It began in February 2011 and the first public involvement opportunities – a series of stakeholder meetings, plus a blog post open to public input – took place in September and October of that year. A series of stakeholder meetings and forums have been hosted throughout 2012. To be fair, Calgary took a different approach, with Council approving a set of principles early on and the rest of the project unfolding in four phases, but the fact remains that a significant amount of public involvement has taken and continues to take place.

Another thing to note about Calgary’s project – there are at least ten individuals working on it:

A team from across City Departments called the Corporate Growth Management Project (CGMP) team, has been assembled to create the Framework for Growth and Change.

Edmonton and Calgary both pay lip service to managing growth, but only Calgary seems willing to back that up with the necessary funding.

Designing New Neighbourhoods

In contrast to the Growth Coordination Strategy, the Designing New Neighbourhoods project has unfolded much more predictably with multiple opportunities for public input. The outcome of that project is a set of guidelines for Edmonton’s new neighbourhoods. Section 4.1 of the MDP directed the creation of these guidelines, but unlike the Growth Coordination Strategy, technically nothing depends on their existence.

The draft guidelines are slated to go to Council “in early 2013” and already a number of public involvement opportunities have taken place. In May, there was a series of blog posts and an IdeaScale site was created to harvest ideas from citizens. The project team also encouraged the use of Twitter to suggest ideas, a positive step for public involvement at the City!

Importantly, the project also has a Design Team that is “made up of a diverse group of about 30 people from the local development, urban design, and home building industries, as well as members of the City’s Administration, the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, Edmonton’s Schools Boards, and the University of Alberta’s City-Region Studies Centre.” That same post talks about the inclusion of external consultants too.

The City of Edmonton’s page on Public Involvement states:

The City of Edmonton is committed to involving the people affected by the decisions it makes. We seek diverse opinions, experiences and information so that a wide spectrum of information is available to decision makers.

Designing New Neighbourhoods seems to meet that commitment, but unfortunately, the Growth Coordination Strategy does not.

The Ongoing Abatement of Section 3.1 of the MDP

I’m very concerned that the potential impact of Section 3.1 of the MDP has been continually eroded over the last two years. In February 2011, City Council passed a motion (item 6.16) that redefined eight Neighbourhood Structure Plans from “new” to “existing” which means they are no longer subject to the completion of the Growth Coordination Strategy and other documents. Futhermore, it authorized the preparation of six other Neighbourhood Structure Plans.

Only Councillors Henderson, Iveson, and Sloan opposed the motion. In his remarks on the motion, Councillor Henderson said “I really do think this is an undermining of what we passed in the MDP” and that “our tools to deal with how we grow and when we grow in this city – we’re giving them away.”

Why did this happen? It’s not as though Edmonton is running out of places for people to live. Prior to the motion in February 2011, there were 41 Neighbourhood Structure Plans approved (between 1984 and 2010) and at various stages of development. Together, those plans have a planned capacity of 116,000 resident units yet just 19,000 units have been developed. That means 84% of the development in those areas is still outstanding. There should not be such a rush to develop new land.

Again, I think politics are at play. Our current City Council has been good to the development industry, but with a new Mayor and Council slated to take office next fall, there’s no guarantee that will continue. Better to get as much approved now as possible, if you’re in the land development industry. Unfortunately for citizens this means our city continues to sprawl, more or less free of any restrictions. Sooner or later the cost of that sprawl is going to catch up with us.