Opinion: Edmonton needs infill solutions, not a jurisdictional battle

Keith Gerein’s column, “Smith’s edict is in – Edmonton council can’t run its own city,” Oct. 14, frames the province’s intervention in Edmonton’s zoning
controversy as an attack on municipal autonomy. That framing of the situation that presented itself on Oct. 8, avoids the central issue: Thousands of Edmontonians have been asking for serious planning problems to be addressed, and they believe the city’s response has been inadequate.

Engaging with neighbourhoods in redevelopment does not stop growth. It is about ensuring that growth is responsibly planned, that development fits its site and surroundings, and that the public has a meaningful voice in decisions directly impacting their homes and their street.

The city repeatedly points to years of public consultation as justification for its zoning decisions. But there is a fundamental difference between digital participation in a citywide visioning exercise and meaningful engagement with communities about what will be built on their streets.

The City Plan set out broad principles for Edmonton’s future. That does not mean residents understood, let alone endorsed, replacing a single-family home with an eight-unit building, or potentially 16 units if the lot was subdivided into two. Residents were promised gentle densification. Instead, many have seen an abrupt change in the scale and intensity of development, as streets of single-family homes gave way to apartment buildings without enough care to reduce the impacts on neighbouring properties.

And where was the follow-up? Once the city translated broad planning principles into zoning regulations, did it return to affected communities and ask: Is this what you understood? Did we get it right? Those questions are a fundamental test of meaningful public engagement.

Meanwhile, a substantial grassroots movement emerged across Edmonton. Thousands of residents, working through volunteer community organizations without public funding, documented problems organized to allow their voices to be heard — that they were being left out of any engagement in decision-making.

Thousands appealed to the province for assistance. Their concerns cannot reasonably be dismissed as resistance to change. The feedback loop to validate whether what they said and what was enacted was not closed. Concerns raised at public hearings were mischaracterized as NIMBY.

These concerns are specific and practical: inadequate drainage, insufficient parking, unsafe or obstructed pathways, inadequate space for waste collection, and buildings that are too large for their sites and appear out of scale with the street. Residents have also raised concerns about construction safety, enforcement and the cumulative effects of redevelopment.

These are not simply matters of neighbourhood aesthetics. They are questions about whether development can function safely and responsibly on its site without imposing unreasonable consequences on neighbouring properties.

The scale of development also matters. Apartment-style buildings inserted into the middle of predominantly detached-house blocks can represent a substantial change in built form. When multiple properties redevelop, the cumulative effects on parking, traffic, infrastructure and neighbourhood conditions deserve assessment.

Planning is not simply counting how many housing units receive permits. It is determining where growth belongs, how it should be accommodated, and whether the infrastructure and regulatory systems can support it. It is about balanced growth.

Edmonton’s planning hierarchy should address these questions. The City Plan should establish clear growth policies, local area plans should translate them into neighbourhood-specific strategies, and the zoning bylaw should implement those decisions. A citywide zoning bylaw cannot carry the entire planning burden on its own.

The other misconception is that provincial involvement necessarily means the province is taking over Edmonton.

Municipalities exercise planning powers under Alberta’s Municipal Government Act. The province has a legitimate role in establishing provincial policy and ensuring that municipal regulatory systems operate within that framework. At the same time, municipal autonomy matters, and provincial directions should be clear, lawful and respectful of local decision-making.

These principles are not mutually exclusive.

The Oct. 8 announcement sets out the province’s intended direction, but the legal mechanism and requirements for implementation is yet to be established. It is important to distinguish a publicly announced policy direction from a formal, legally operative order.

That distinction in this circumstance, creates an opportunity for the city to work with its communities to find a pathway that maintains that autonomy and to negotiate a solution that meets provincial policy. It should create an opportunity for constructive discussion, not an immediate jurisdictional confrontation.

The city has every reason to seek clarification, identify practical consequences and explain which requirements it can implement and which it believes require modification. The province, in turn, should work with the city, residents and the development industry to establish a workable transition.

Threats of litigation before those discussions have been exhausted risk diverting time, money and attention from the problems residents have spent years documenting.

There is also a responsibility to communicate accurately. The city should avoid portraying every provincial policy direction as a loss of municipal self-government. Both governments owe the public a clear explanation of what is proposed, what is legally required and what remains open to negotiation.

The objective should be neither a return to the past nor a defence of the status quo. It should be a better planning system that accommodates housing growth while protecting public safety, neighbouring properties and the long-term viability of established communities.

Edmontonians are not asking governments to fight over who has the power to make decisions. They are asking those governments to exercise their responsibilities and solve the problems.

Dallas Moravec is chair of Edmonton Neighbourhoods United.

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