Big developers are trying to convince Premier Smith to force Edmonton to allow even more sprawl. Meanwhile, our annual climate survey shows Edmontonians want urgent action on climate change. Adding density and subtracting car trips can have an outsized impact on ensuring clean air and water for all. Big developers backdooring more urban sprawl via the provincial government is absolutely the wrong path forward.
According to yesterday's issue of Taproot Edmonton's THE PULSE (Edmonton policies and processes could be targeted...), the CEO of the real estate lobby group BILD Edmonton metro is potentially reporting Edmonton to the provincial government for not allowing more sprawl fast enough.
As I wrote about at michaeljanz.ca/stopsprawl, more urban sprawl is the largest driver of our tax increases, is highly profitable for the big suburban developers, but expensive for residents paying higher taxes and car ownership costs. There is so much land available already for development inside of our existing growth boundaries, plus many other untapped opportunities such as under-utilized big box suburban retail. There is a better way forward....
The City of Edmonton released the annual Climate Change and Energy Perceptions Report, revealing insights on Edmontonians’ views and attitudes towards climate change, energy efficiency and the ongoing need for environmental action. Climate change remains a pressing issue for Edmontonians with 73 per cent reporting they are concerned about climate change and 74 per cent believing that urgent action is needed to address its impacts.
"Climate change is not an abstract issue for Edmontonians; it's now part of our daily lives, from extreme weather events to shifts in how we think about energy consumption and efficiency," Consistent with previous years, 70 per cent of respondents attribute climate change to primarily human activity. Edmontonians expressed a strong willingness to act with over 60 per cent of respondents reporting they are taking individual action to adapt to climate change. In a new question on this year’s survey, 63 per cent of respondents believe it is not too late to take action to reduce the impacts of climate change.
Edmontonians continue to see the importance of reducing energy consumption, with approximately two-thirds of respondents stating that creating energy efficiency at home is crucial. The City of Edmonton continues to support property owners to make the transition to renewable energy through programs such as the Clean Energy Improvement Program, which provides long-term financing for energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades that is then paid back on their individual property taxes, and the multi-unit residential property solar rebate program.
However, neither of these efforts have addressed the elephant in the room, and one of the largest sources of GHG emissions growth in our City: suburban sprawl. This is why climate advocates are so adamant that constraining outward expansion (stop urban sprawl) is so important. Without limiting suburban sprawl we will never hit our climate targets, nor become the vibrant, walkable, healthy city that we all envision.
What we measure matters, and I was very concerned to read that Edmonton needs to reduce its carbon emissions by 23% below 2023 levels to reach the 2025 target laid out in the city’s carbon budget. In an update to the carbon budget, administration said 2023’s levels were 9.3% lower than the 2005 baseline levels, but not low enough to reach the budget’s target.
The budget’s goals are divided into two categories: Corporate carbon, which consists of areas that the municipality can control like city-owned buildings and vehicles, and community carbon, which is controlled by Edmontonians at large. For example, almost 12,000 km of roads requiring paving, sweeping, snow removal and pothole repair. The community carbon level is moving in a promising direction, administration said, as the community has surpassed the 2030 energy efficiency target set in the city’s energy transition strategy.
Earlier this year, the City of Edmonton Energy Transition and Climate Resilience Committee (external climate change experts) shared that they were really encouraged by the suite of tools the City of Edmonton is using to manage future growth. Zoning Bylaw Renewal and District Planning are critically important steps toward ensuring Edmonton develops sustainably.
When we build new suburbs, the infrastructure that developers install very quickly becomes a financial liability. All of the roads, sidewalks, water, sewer and storm pipes, and bridges need to be maintained and replaced, forever. Every new community also needs new recreation centres, parks, rinks and other amenities. The City of Edmonton bears these capital costs, as well as the maintenance costs. As a City, we know this is completely unsustainable financially; our own analysis shows this (Decouteau, $1.4 billion). Add to this the carbon cost of all of the infrastructure developments (both operational and embodied), the emissions of all the large inefficient single family homes, as well as the emissions associated with transportation, and we realize very quickly that this is not a viable path forward, neither from a carbon nor a financial perspective.
While the proposed Substantial Completion Standard aims to address these concerns by requiring a developing area to achieve a prescribed level of completion before new development is allowed, it must go further. Firstly, there are too few required metrics and too many “tracked” metrics. For example, schools, mobility and transport infrastructure, as well as affordable housing, libraries, fire halls and rec centres are only tracked metrics. That means substantial completion would still be considered achieved, even if these communities have none of these services available.
While suburban development is great for developers, we know that it will devastate the City financially and make it impossible to carry our vital responsibility to achieve our emissions targets. I wrote about the billions in profits created by suburban sprawl here: https://albertapolitics.ca/2024/03/guest-post-michael-janz-says-sales-data-indicate-suburban-sprawl-has-created-profits-of-1b-for-edmonton-developers-over-a-decade/
While developers will argue that preventing suburban sprawl will increase house prices, there is very little evidence for this claim and is also a limited, irresponsible evaluation of cost. Housing affordability is much more than first cost, especially considering that these “lower cost” homes are generally homes that, according to our Community Energy Transition Strategy, need a deep energy retrofit before the mortgage is even half paid down; and are vulnerable to energy and carbon tax escalations in the meantime. The average carbon footprint of households living in the centre of large, population-dense urban cities is about 50 percent below average, while households in distant suburbs are up to twice the average, in other words, growing suburbs wipes out any benefits we get from densification. The costs to the municipalities and thus tax payers for all the previously mentioned infrastructure investments and maintenance is not factored into the equation either. The Canada Urban Institute estimates the infrastructure cost for each home at over $100,000. Of course this is an average: with increased density the costs are lower, and with substantial completion most of the required infrastructure is already in place.
Homeowner costs need to also factor in transportation costs, travel time, and the health costs associated with increased commute times.
Increased density allows for a more complete utilisation of our existing assets, including schools, roads, water mains, rec centres etc. Density makes every city facility more financially viable. Smart growth management must ensure we are building complete communities where residents have access to essential city services like public transit, parks, recreation, and waste services, as well as various amenities and good quality infrastructure.
Density increases the financial viability of each of these neighbourhoods as well, not only providing critically needed money, but improving the business cases for transport and district energy systems, while also reducing transport and building emissions significantly. So while suburban sprawl may lower the cost of inefficient single family homes, it does nothing to reduce costs of compact efficient homes in areas where people may actually want to live. Dense, diverse housing typology will actually lower the cost of homes while helping us stick to our climate commitments.
Globally, suburban sprawl is responsible for one-third of all GHG emissions, but is generally overlooked and ignored. Suburban sprawl increases car dependencies, requires longer travel distances, and leads to more embodied carbon in the built environment, less efficient buildings, more land consumption and the destruction of natural carbon sinks and biodiversity.
Building efficient, dense urban developments is one of the best levers we have for reducing GHG emissions. “Compact, mixed-use communities mean shorter travel distances, more physical activity and improved health outcomes, more housing affordability, less construction material, more energy-efficient buildings, and less land and water consumption.” Not to mention that compact, mixed-use communities would also add way more housing at a time when we desperately need it. Studies have shown that the GHG impact of building more compact and efficient homes where people need them can have a larger impact than if half the population moved to zero emissions vehicles. “About one-half of the pollution reduction associated with increasing conveniently-located housing would come from reduced travel: cars burning less gas and consuming less electricity. One-third would come from reduced vehicle manufacturing and upstream oil production. The remainder would come from preservation of natural carbon sinks that would otherwise be lost to sprawl and more efficient, less material-intensive buildings.”
The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimates that 5.8 million homes need to be built across the country by 2030 in order to address the housing affordability crisis. No one wins when we pit climate action and housing affordability against one another; to achieve both affordability and net zero objectives, we need to make different choices than those we have historically made (and continue to make). This report explores two scenarios that can take us to 5.8 million new homes by 2030. The first is a business-as-usual scenario where we continue to build as we have always built and urban sprawl is permitted with little recourse.
The second scenario is a targeted infill scenario, where the geographic distribution of new homes remains unchanged at the municipal level and new housing is built within the existing boundaries. This report found the “difference between the business-as-usual scenario and a targeted infill scenario in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, is more than 4.5 MT of CO2e annually. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions from more than 1,100,000 gas-powered cars.”
The conclusion that the report comes to is that, “if we want more housing and less emissions, we need to infill everywhere”. That means making the absolute most of the existing land and buildings in every community, prioritizing building close to existing transit service, building on under-utilized surface parking lots and brownfield sites and converting vacant commercial buildings to residential uses. Time-limited policies to encourage construction of new housing in these locations as soon as possible should be pursued by all levels of government.” We can meet the demands of increased, affordable housing AND reach our climate goals by focusing our efforts on infill and densification. We will also save money by avoiding costs that would otherwise be incurred.
Furthermore, we must acknowledge that we are already not investing enough in our existing infrastructure and increasingly intense weather events will only balloon this liability in decades to come, as seen during the atmospheric river flooding in BC and our own spending on storm drainage upgrades.
The ETCRC recommendations were as follows:
- Revise the current Substantial Completion Standard to require substantial completion at the district level in the entire city before further suburban development is allowed.
- Include affordable housing, transportation, critical infrastructure, and most importantly, density metrics as required metrics for substantial completion.
- Direct administration to quantify the emissions scenarios for each option to ensure that GHG emissions align with our Energy Transition Strategy, and include all related emissions including transportation, buildings, embodied carbon etc.
- Require full financial analysis of new developments to ensure they are financially viable and revenue neutral so that the City’s tax payers are not burdened for decades to come.
To kick-off 2025 and in advance of our upcoming federal election, I wanted to share with you a quick video I can’t stop thinking about. We badly need fair prices, consumer protection, and public competition.
With a little imagination and organizing we can rebuild our public services, the proven check and balance for democracy.
We recently received a memo from city administration about the "state of pickleball" in Edmonton, and I wanted to share this with you.
Many a time I’ve been out walking or cycling in the river valley and found myself in search of a bite or a beverage. We have a couple of great spots that I think could be much more.
