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Lorne Gunter: Edmonton city council fantasists unlikely to reduce multiplex limits

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Next Tuesday, city council will return to the issue of infill and whether to allow the continued construction of eight-unit monstrosities on tiny lots in the middle of blocks in mature neighbourhoods.

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The short answer should be, “No.” Council shouldn’t continue to approve these neighbourhood destroyers.

Council should admit its two-year-old development bylaw was a colossal mistake. Not only are these multi-unit structures eyesores that rob privacy from next-door homes (could you relax in your yard when third-floor residents in an eight-plex beside you can peer down at your patio and garden?) Streets become clogged with residents’ parked cars because developers are not required to provide off-street parking. Mature trees can be felled to make way and streets and alleys are cluttered with garbage bins.

Earlier this week, administration recommended to council’s urban planning committee that the maximum number of suites in mid-block developments be reduced to six from eight, and that developers be required to increase the amount of yard per unit.

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This latter recommendation would have the effect, in a lot of developments, of reducing the number of suites to four from eight, especially on small lots.

But the urban planning committee could not come up with a recommendation to pass on to council. Many of its members are True Believers in eight-plexes. So next Tuesday and Wednesday, council as a whole will revisit how to handle mid-block constructions.

A public hearing will likely follow on April 7.

The debate will be between the pragmatists and the fantasists (or is that fanatics?)

Dallas Moravec, a pragmatist from Edmonton Neighbourhoods United, told the online news site Taproot, “It’s the massing and the volume of the buildings that’s actually creating the problem … If we don’t actually limit the length, the height, the width of the buildings … we don’t feel like it’s actually going to solve the problem.”

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These massive bunkers of crammed-in apartments and condos are also unnecessary.

The fantasists who spoke about the “need” for this infill, insisted hyper-density is needed to keep housing affordable and to ensure Edmonton remains environmentally sustainable.

Jacob Dawang of Grow Together Edmonton told Taproot that amending the development bylaw as administration has recommended would turn back important progress in Edmonton.

It would create “a city where the only choice that many people had, if you could not afford a single-family home, was either to go out into the suburbs or maybe hope one day that you could afford a single-family home.”

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But is a 250-square-foot bachelor or one-bedroom suite in an eight-plex truly an alternative to a single-family home? Even a two-bedroom apartment, condo or townhouse is much more appealing than a super-tiny eight-plex rabbit warren.

Even if the units in eight-plexes were 500 square feet (they’re not), who could raise a family there?

But for the advocates for eight-plexes, this isn’t mostly about affordability. It about the environment and social justice.

They want people to be jammed into tiny apartments with no parking so they will take transit, bike or walk. And they are looking to open some of Edmonton’s most attractive neighbourhoods to lower-income residents.

Last June, Mayor Andrew Knack, who was a councillor at the time, said one of the main goals of infill was to make housing more equitable. “The best way to achieve affordable housing in a community like Crestwood will be government-funded affordable housing.”

This ignores the fact that if demand for lots in established neighbourhoods increases, so will he price of lots, thereby driving up the cost of the homes built on them.

Unfortunately, the majority on council are fantasists — believers in their own theories about transit, 15-minute walkable cities and “green” sustainability. Most of those re-elected last fall had already voted last July to keep the cap at eight units rather than reduce to six.

I suppose it’s possible some have changed their minds since then, but that seems unlikely.

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