ZONING BYLAW RENEWAL
On October 23, 2023, City Council passed a new Zoning Bylaw. The passing of the Bylaw represents the most significant streamlining of our development regulations in decades. It also sparked a rich discussion in our community about how we grow as a city. To some, the new Bylaw means being able to buy or rent in a central location with access to transit and amenities. To others it represents unwanted change or even the destruction of the neighbourhoods they love. I wanted to take some time to share how I came to see the Bylaw as a shift that I believe will benefit Edmontonians as a whole - now and in the future.
One of the best outcomes of the new Zoning Bylaw is its relative simplicity. The old rules were complex and often redundant. This didn't just create inconvenience for builders and developers - these rules also caused headaches for homeowners looking to make simple adjustments like extensions, decks, or basement suites. The simplicity of the new Bylaw will help us adapt to the changing needs of our growing city, and allow us to respond to unforeseen challenges and opportunities ahead.
The other exciting aspect of the new Zoning Bylaw is that it aligns with City Plan, our vision for a thriving future. In the old Bylaw, rules often worked against the goals of the City Plan, for example by making it harder to build innovative homes, or preventing new businesses from opening up. The new Bylaw provides consistent rules that can help make the City Plan vision a reality in our day-to-day lives. For individuals, this can mean something as simple as being able to walk to a local coffee shop, or being able to downsize within a neighbourhood you love. As a community, this means helping us to slow our suburban spread and better manage our public dollars.
In the long run, a more compact city with complete communities is the direction we need to move in. But it's not without its challenges in the short-term. Having a property redevelop next door to you is disruptive and forward-facing development can feel out of scale with what's existing now. These real growing pains need to be weighed against the urgent action we need to take to rise to the challenges facing our community.
During the public hearing, I heard dozens of Edmontonians talk about the importance of responding to climate change and housing affordability. These are priorities I share. I believe the new Zoning Bylaw will contribute to these goals in a meaningful way. Building a compact city, where people have options to take transit, bike, or walk, is critical to us meeting our climate change goals. In addition to helping us to reduce our carbon footprint, compact development also slows the rate at which open fields and forests are replaced with roads and buildings. Market housing affordability is also supported when there are more choices in the size and type of home you're buying or renting. When a single neighbourhood can offer detached houses, duplexes, row houses, basement suites, condo and apartment units, you're more likely to find a price point that works for you.
Despite this strong foundation, I agree that further steps need to be taken on climate change and housing affordability. I was pleased to support my colleague Councillor Salvador's motion to have climate adaptation and mitigation further embedded into the new Zoning Bylaw, including solar and EV readiness. While the Zoning Bylaw alone can't meet our Community Energy Transition Strategy and Climate Adaptation Strategy and Action Plan, it's important that we take every step we can. Similarly, there is a lot of work we need to do outside of the Zoning Bylaw to address housing affordability, and I appreciate the motion from Councillor Tang to get a progress report on our goal of providing a minimum of 16% non-market housing in every neighbourhood in the city.
There were other elements of the new Zoning Bylaw that I flagged for further work. This included the street level design of apartment and condo buildings to ensure more human-scaled development, as well as including minimum shelter standards in our regulations to ensure safe and dignified space and reduced impact on surrounding communities. I also requested that City staff monitor how new regulations are supporting or preventing new childcare spaces from opening, as well as the impact of limiting the number of units on interior lots to eight. We will have an opportunity to see how these and other regulations are performing at the one year review check-in point and can adjust the regulations accordingly.
Just as the Zoning Bylaw will be an ongoing project of refinement and change, so too will the growth of our neighbourhoods. Change won't come all at once but will move at the pace of individual homeowners choosing to sell or redevelop their properties. It's the accumulation of these small steps over time that leads to transformational change. My hope is that the new Zoning Bylaw makes these steps easier and more people are encouraged to take them.
I'm deeply grateful to everyone who took part in Zoning Bylaw engagement over the past five years, and for all those who reached out by email, phone, or spoke at Public Hearing. Your insights and concerns have significantly improved the Bylaw and will continue to do so. I am also inspired by the shared values among everyone involved. It was a profound reminder that there is much more that unites us than divides us, and that together we can build a more prosperous future for all.
