February 2023 City Hall Round-Up
2023 has been off to a steady start after the 2023-2026 budget deliberations last year. Collectively, we as a Council are fully cognizant of the large amount of work ahead for administration. Beyond the 100+ motions from 2022, City staff members are also engaging in a massive shift within the organization with “OP-12”, a motion that will see a $60 million reduction over 4 years across the corporation, as well as reallocating $240 million in funds towards frontline services during that period. This is no small feat and will require corporate-wide coordination and efficiency-seeking; it is a transformational exercise that will ultimately result in increased service level, and a better and more effective use of City budget. Or at least, that is the hope. The City Manager is reporting to Council each month to share progress on this exercise. For now, we need to let Administration do the work.
In the meantime, I also wanted to share my thoughts on a few recent decisions at Council which saw a close split vote, or topics which have been popular in the media.
Decision on Closure of 102 Avenue in Downtown (Feb 21, 2023 Public Hearing)
Eight months ago, in a very split vote, Council moved to close 102 Ave. between 99 St. and 103 St. to vehicular traffic. The LRT wasn’t running, and the road would be closed anyway except for pedestrian and cyclist traffic. We were looking at this closure as an opportunity to experiment, and encourage placemaking and activation to make 102 Ave. the vibrant closed street that Edmontonians envisioned it to be. I did NOT vote to support the street closure back then but did accept Council's decision to proceed. I also kept an open mind - if the experiment proved to be successful, we could consider permanently closing the street. We even identified money for placemaking via the Downtown Vibrancy Fund. I went for a site visit after the vote with council colleagues who were so excited about this change - “Just imagine what it could be.”
The debate back then for me boiled down to whether this stretch is the best candidate for a car-free street. The street was already designed to accommodate multi-modal transportation (foot, bike, car and soon the street level LRT) and the new design hadn't been open to observe how people experience it and move along it. I wanted to give the design a chance before altering the nature of the street. Moreover, best practices when it comes to pedestrian-only streets show that among other things, street-front businesses are fairly critical to create an inviting environment, natural surveillance, and increased foot traffic - all of which help sustain downtown vibrancy. Except this stretch didn’t have much of this kind of natural activation. Research in pedestrian malls illustrate how they seldomly meet the intended goals of vibrancy - and when they fail, they often become spaces that create a sense of vacancy and decline (1).
Eight months later, and unfortunately, not much has changed. The animation we had hoped for did not come to fruition. It wasn’t for a lack of trying - YMCA attempted street Zumba classes; the Downtown Business Association explored placemaking opportunities along the stretch. Many community partners just could not envision a sense of ownership of this space, and were bogged down by the sheer fact that there is a train running down the middle of the road, making it physically difficult to do much with. There were no picnic tables and coloured umbrellas over the summer time. I wondered what happened to the original vision for this space.
This brings me back to the question I had been considering - is this stretch of road the best candidate for pedestrianization. When this bylaw came forward to permanently close the street, which City staff did not recommend, I felt that there was little new information that would sway my vote.
At the public hearing, we heard compelling cases from Downtown residents who wanted to keep the streets closed for physical safety of pedestrians and cyclists in a car-free environment, where families and children can feel at ease and freely explore their built environment. Many saw this as a first step towards a broader movement for pedestrianizing downtown. But everyone who came forward understood the nuance in this debate and that there are legitimate concerns on both sides. All of these concerns are real. As a pedestrian and bike commuter, it is almost daily I come across a driver turning right at a scrambled intersection, or on red where there is clear signage of “no turn on red,” or vehicles parked right in the bike lane. There is more we can do about traffic safety and I take this to heart. But I also ask: is the only answer to all of these challenges pedestrianizing 102 Ave?
Beyond that, there is a major body of work for a pedestrianization strategy, exploring and continuing to close down and activate streets like Rice Howard Way and 104 St. We’ll hear more about this strategy in November. But this gave me the reassurance that 102 Ave. is not the be-all-end-all, that there are options that are better, more suitable, safer, and business-friendly (ideally resulting in animation) where families and children can gain that sense of safety, openness, and freedom to interact with their environment.
My vote in this discussion stayed the same for much of the same reasons as I had 8 months ago, and Council in a close split voted to re-open the road. However, the street will be open to vehicle traffic at a significantly slower pace (30km/hr, and we might even consider a slower speed!). There will be no parking stalls along the stretch, so cars can’t park and go - so this stretch will not necessarily be the economic stimulator that so many businesses have come forward to fight for. City staff is also now looking into options at how to more physically separate the bike path from vehicle traffic beyond the current design. Perhaps the next experiment is opening the road, and us giving this design a chance.
Vehicle noise bylaw (Feb 22, 2023 City Council Meeting)
At the February 22nd City Council meeting, Council voted unanimously to increase fine amounts for noisy vehicles, whether cars or motorcycles, to $1000. While this decision was not split, the vehicle noise bylaw saw considerable debate during committee meetings and during the budget deliberation, where a service package for additional resources to enforce the bylaw was not approved due to financial constraints. In the absence of additional enforcement, we can turn to fine amounts as another tool in our toolbox to curb excessive vehicle noise.
While some may argue that this change will see limited impact (much like the 2012 no-idling bylaw), we have seen successes in changing a behaviour by increasing fine amounts (for example, the residential parking ban fines implemented this winter, which we discussed during my latest Facebook Live about snow removal). And to be clear, the provincial Traffic Safety Act already stipulates a base fine of $155 for noisy vehicles; and the City previously imposed an additional fine for motorcycles only under the Community Standards Bylaw. The idea with this bylaw is to bring the fines for cars in line with motorcycles, for noisy cars deliberately modified to be louder.
Even though advocacy efforts for the bylaw were led by Council members representing neighbourhoods with streets prone to loud noise like Whyte and Jasper Avenues, I hear enough from residents in Ward Karhiio to know that this is not an issue unique to central Edmonton. While noise is expected in a city of 1 million like Edmonton, some noise goes above and beyond. Many homes back onto busy major roads like the Whitemud, Anthony Henday, and arterial roads like Mill Woods Rd. and 50th Street. One resident wrote to me, “The noise from the traffic moving at the posted speed limit has to be expected and accepted, but the racket from motorcycles, pick up trucks and other vehicles with modified exhausts is nothing short of an assault. On one occasion, a car roared past my house and it could still be heard when it hit the Henday”. In fact, I frequently talk to residents in greenfield neighbourhoods like Walker and Summerside where cars use roads like Grande Boulevard and Watt Promenade as race tracks in the middle of the night, disturbing the entire neighbourhood and affecting residents’ quality of life and safety.
For anything relating to enforcement the City of Edmonton takes a “4E” approach: Engage, Educate, Encourage, Enforce, where “Enforce” is typically the last resort even though it is the most publicly visible and tangible to be felt. I recognize that some loud vehicles are due to faulty car parts and some people may face genuine financial challenges to pay for the fix, particularly during the current affordability crisis. While ticketing is at the discretion of bylaw officers, we do have the expectation that they continue to take the empathy-based 4E approach, rather than an inflexible one, to understand the unique circumstance that someone is in.
Residential Property Tax Subclassing (Feb 22, 2023 City Council)
The discussion on residential subclassing is about a decades-old tax structure that mandated that rental apartment buildings (or ‘Other Residential’) pay 15% more in property taxes than their multi-unit counterparts such as condos. While tax structure discussions can be dry, for me, this discussion boiled down to one about values and equity.
When I initially read the report, I was worried about the pace of changes being made. We had just passed a 4-year budget, scrutinized each item line-by-line, and had to say ‘no’ to many important endeavors in the community. If we needed to talk about tax restructuring again, I wanted to know why we didn't have this conversation back in December when finalizing the budget and resulting tax increase? City staff answered this question rather simply - this is a tax conversation, not one about budget. I maintain the two are inextricably related. Pulling at this thread, which comes with significant tax implications, is just setting us up for yet another overly polarized debate.
When we delved deeper, I also realized that the answer wasn’t all that simple and there were valid reasons on both sides. On one side, people saw this as a paycheque back to landlords and developers at the expense of other property owners (you can read this commentary in the Edmonton Journal, which I do think has flaws). On the other side, stakeholders highlighted the benefits that this bold move would have to densification and achieving City Plan targets, housing affordability for rentals, and bringing Edmonton’s multi-unit development to the same level as Calgary’s. Calgary had similar subclassing policies created in the 1970’s which were removed in the 1990’s, making it a more attractive place to build. I wanted to share a few of my thoughts on some of these threads:
Apartments are not the only rental units. Condo owners can also be landlords renting out their units. However, they are not taxed in the same way.
Removing the subclass is not exactly a paycheque back to landlords, and certainly will not be redistributed back to renters in the short-term. The mechanism that would lower rent is much longer term, based on the logic of supply and demand. Levelling the tax structure would stimulate more multi-unit residential developments in the medium- and long-term; and by increasing supply, the rental rate would come down. Professor Bob Summers had a great thread about this type of marginal economics as a rebuttal to the piece in the Edmonton Journal.
In terms of tax burden, we will not be drastically or quickly shifting it onto other property owners. The final decision phases out the subclassing structure over a 5-year period, starting in 2024. With the longer time frame, along with other financial variances that can happen each year during year-end consolidation, we may see very little impact on additional taxes.
When it comes to the Calgary and Edmonton pace of multi-unit residential development, over the last several years, there has been a difference - but how significant is it? Moreover, how much investment in the City have we lost because of our policy? The evidence for the impact of residential subclassing here is tenuous. This is why the economics argument of this debate was not what necessarily won me over.
What convinced me ultimately to vote in favour of removing the ‘Other Residential’ subclass was in fact values and equity. The residential subclassing policy came about in the 1970’s, with some work beginning even earlier. The premise at the time was questionable, with arguments made about apartment dwellers using up disproportionate amounts of City resources which should be taxed at a higher rate. The decision was put in place to essentially benefit single family homeowners, and discourage multi-unit residential development. However, today we know that low-density suburban residential is actually more expensive to service for taxpayers overall than an apartment building. The original intent is rooted in classism, and was inherently inequitable and discriminatory. While we didn’t dive into the demographics of apartment renters today and back in the 70’s during the Council meeting, I have a good guess of who resided in them - likely people with lower incomes, blue collar workers and students, people who are racialized, and/or those who were newly immigrated.
Over the last few years, the City has worked hard to remove discriminatory and exclusionary zoning practices (see an example in this “Making Spaces” podcast). Other jurisdictions have made policies like “redlining” a thing of the past, where housing segregation based along racial or ethnic lines is not tolerated. While this aspect of the larger residential subclassing story got very little attention, I think it is an important one to note. Changes can be difficult, particularly those which have been long-standing, but it doesn’t give us an excuse to maintain legacy policies that are rooted in discrimination and inequities.
15-minute Communities
For the past few weeks, the conversation around 15-minute communities has shifted into an unforeseen direction, making a mundane urban planning notion that is practiced and strived for in almost every City in the world into a divisive topic.
The City’s planning team has a lot of information on 15-minute communities - a concept where we design our neighbourhoods so that residents can access amenities and “easily complete their daily needs” within 15-minutes of commute around their home (i.e., walking, cycling, transit, and driving). You can find great resources in the City Plan and the District Plans which I highly recommend you read, and a lot has also been written and shared by international urban planners, pundits and elected officials.
The 15-minute community is a key principle of the City Plan, which began several years ago as the City looked to renew and refresh its strategic plan. Widespread engagement happened around 2018, with the full plan published in 2020. Since that time, the next stage of planning has begun at the district level (i.e., District Planning) - this works to consolidate some of our older plans like Area Structure Plans and Neighbourhood Structure Plans, and create guiding documents for development.
Cities and communities typically don’t pop up spontaneously - it takes a concerted, thoughtful planning approach that begins with vision-setting (like our City Plan), and gets more granular with implementation on streets.
Our vision guides us, and ultimately impacts zoning and urban planning decisions. These planning practices, like a 15-minute community, are how we can ensure adequate commercial developments are part of neighbourhoods so residents can easily access their medical appointments, groceries, pharmacies, restaurants, and more. It is why factories are not located next-door to a single-family home. Ultimately, their goal is to provide choice and freedom for Edmontonians to ease access for amenities and services. And of course, if people want to stick to their long-time family doctor or favourite grocery store on the other side of town, they can continue to either by driving, or perhaps through public transit. 15-minute communities are not about limiting options or restricting travel, but giving Edmontonians more choices and equitably sharing resources across communities.
There has been misinformation floating around about 15-minute communities which started with a tweet, that incorrectly references a community in England that is also called Edmonton. However, the conversation in Edmonton has begun to snowball due to this misinformation. Rather than use people’s fears or spread false information, I hope to see civil discourse and debate on this topic using research, evidence and lived experiences.
Coming full circle, I want to end this long blog with an excerpt from this opinion piece written by two people at opposite ends of the 102 Avenue street closure debate that resonated with me:
“[W]e need to prioritize a more respectful “civic commons.” We need to rethink how we govern, and invite stakeholders to respectfully engage, agree, and agree to disagree. We saw how groups on both sides of the debate brought forward their ideas and perspectives and acknowledge that this type of culture is fairly absent from most cities. Debate is good. We need to keep the public jousting and debates alive. But we also need to be OK with a win or a loss, on either side, and move forward collaboratively.” (Stephen Raitz and Jason Syvixay)
