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Lorne Gunter: Council continues infill obsession over objections from administration, residents

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One thing I have always loved about this city is its democracy of space. Even in lower-income neighbourhoods there are tree-lined streets, with tidy homes surrounded by green lawns and bright flowers. Not on every block, but on many of them.

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But no longer, not if the majority on Edmonton city council get their way. They are bulling ahead with the ultra-dense infill in the face of public opposition,  even over the occasional objection from the administration and judicial directions.

If council cannot be stopped, Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods will eventually be stuffed full of monolithic, multi-suite developments stretching almost from the front sidewalk to the alley with little greenspaces and perhaps the only flowers in pots hung from balconies.

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Oh, sure, council is considering a bylaw making it illegal to cut down trees on private property without prior approval from the city. But council is so determined to force through unsightly, sun-blocking eight-plexes that it’s not hard to believe every developer who claims a tree is in the way of his mega-infill will be granted rubber-stamp permission to kill trees.

Two weeks ago, council voted 8-4 to maintain the current maximum size of mid-block infills at eight units. This it did not only in the face of strong public opposition but also over the recommendations of administration, who had called for a decrease to six units.

Council also forged ahead over the qualms of first responders who, while not stating official opposition to the infills, have expressed their concerns that once the behemoths are built mid-block, residents cars and pickups will so choke the streets that getting firetrucks and ambulances down the blocks will be tricky.

(For those utopian futurists who believe infill dwellers won’t own cars, they’ll take transit, consider that 86 per cent of Edmonton commuters use private vehicles to get to work or school, over 80 per cent of city families own two or more vehicles, and only about two per cent own no cars at all. To think infill residents won’t have cars and won’t park them on the street is naïve to the point of delusional.)

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Not surprisingly, every lefty member of council who was re-elected last October voted to ignore the protests and the administration’s recommendations and stick with the eight-unit maximum.

The only re-elected councillor who didn’t support the idea was Ward tastawiyiniwak Coun. Karen Principe. She moved the motion to reduce the limit to six units and was joined by Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Mike Elliott, Ward sipiwiyiniwak Coun. Thu Parmar and Ward Nakota Isga Coun. Reed Clarke.

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This week, council overrode administration again. Usually, I’m in favour of elected representatives standing up to bureaucrats. But in this case, administration objected to a three-storey development in Wîhkwêntôwin (formerly Oliver) that would jeopardize the historic nature of the neighbourhood.

The site is surrounded by six historically significant homes from Edmonton’s early boom years at the beginning of the 20th century. Administration worried that a three-storey residence with retail on the main floor would be out of keeping with the area.

Our infill-obsessed council didn’t care. They went ahead and approved it anyway.

They ignored protests from residents of Wedgewood Heights to sell an undeveloped school site for a dollar so a developer could build “affordable” (low-rent) housing. A judge had even told the city to re-examine an earlier attempt to sell the site cheaply to take advantage of federal funds for social housing.

Mayor Andrew Knack also revealed a deeper objective for infill and affordable housing — to prevent “economic disparity” between neighbourhoods. What that means is the mayor wants to build affordable housing in some of the cities ritziest areas in the name if social justice.

Whatever the goal, this council (like the last one) is obsessed with density and infill.

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