Cheap houses that we can't afford.
It's the Edmonton advantage.
Last week, in a debate around a new neighbourhood structure plan in the far south of Edmonton, Anne Stevenson put forward a pretty simple motion. Draft the plan for development in the area, but also do some double checks to make sure we're not losing a substantial amount of money by building it.
That a new statutory plan be prepared for land generally bounded by Ellerslie Road SW to the north, 1 Street SW to the east, 41 Avenue SW to the south and 17 Street SW to the west and that:
- a draft of the Neighbourhood Structure Plan return to Urban Planning Committee prior to advancing to City Council Public Hearing, and
- the associated Integrated Infrastructure Management Plan demonstrate how cumulative City costs are not exceeded by cumulative City expenditures, through a combination of approaches including but not limited to densities, land uses, and offsite levies.
Moved by Anne Stevenson
Seconded by Jo-Anne Wright
But a group of seven councillors led by Karen Principe instead said, “Nah, we'd rather not know.”
That the following be deleted:
That a new statutory plan be prepared for land generally bounded by Ellerslie Road SW to the north, 1 Street SW to the east, 41 Avenue SW to the south and 17 Street SW to the west
and that:
a draft of the Neighbourhood Structure Plan return to Urban Planning Committee prior to advancing to City Council Public Hearing, andthe associated Integrated Infrastructure Management Plan demonstrate how cumulative City costs are not exceeded by cumulative City expenditures, through a combination of approaches including but not limited to densities, land uses, and offsite levies.
Moved by Karen Principe
Seconded by Thu Parmar
In favour (7)
Opposed (6)
Kettle Lakes
The plan being drafted is for Kettle Lakes, part of the Decoteau area structure plan.
The city's map of the plan area. Kettle Lakes is the blue one.
Just over 10 years ago when this area structure plan was approved along with two others, reports indicated that the city would be losing over $1.4 billion over the lifetime of the plans.
To achieve something even close to financial viability, these neighbourhoods would have to rely on offsite commercial or business growth outside of the neighbourhood boundaries, spurred by population growth.
It's not happening
But here's the kicker. Over the past 15 years, we've pretty clearly observed that that is just not happening. While there's significant value of industrial development in the region, the majority of it is landing outside of the City of Edmonton.
From 2010 to 2022, 59% of non-residential revenue went to the region, and that's only accelerating. In the back half of this period, 65% of the growth went to the region over us.
From the city's own budget report, FCS02483.
Based on all the data we have, what this means is Edmonton is about to commit to long-term structural financial losses.
But in the short term, these councillors have gifted the greenfield development industry the ability to make an absolute fortune churning out some cheap houses.
It wasn't an unreasonable ask.
Before we cut our own bangs, maybe we should just grab a mirror.
But for these seven councillors, they went for the lights-off, no-guard electric clipper special.
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