Edmonton city council to revisit infill housing discussion

The discussion around infill hasn’t ended at Edmonton City Hall — you still have a week left to give your thoughts in a city survey, as councillors consider some restrictions on infill next month.

Dallas Moravec is with Edmonton Neighbourhoods United. He wants to see more rethinking of the city’s zoning bylaw on infill housing in the city’s older neighbourhoods.

“We’re not very confident after reading that survey. Number one, it was quite a technical survey, so the average person doesn’t know how it’s impacting their street,” said Moravec.

But with a week left on this city survey about capping mid-block infill housing from eight units to six, Moravec says the proposed changes don’t address concerns he is hearing.

“The biggest issue is around the massing, so that’s essentially a large building on a small lot, sometimes five times bigger than the nextdoor house. So we’re hoping for a larger amendment than what we’re seeing administrations are,” said Moravec.

If it feels like you’ve heard this discussion before, you’re right. The previous city council held public hearings this past summer over a number of proposed infill changes at contentious city council meetings, but that council ultimately voted to keep mid-block developments capped at eight units, while making small changes around the look of infill buildings.

“Infill is something we’ve been working on as a city since 2008,” said Michael Janz, councillor for Ward Papastew.

Councillor Janz says changes made over the summer haven’t been seen yet by Edmontonians, and is wondering why city admin is already asking for feedback.

“Those are the version twos; they haven’t been built yet. Some of them are just being permitted. We saw the version one infills, some good, some bad, some really bad. Version two, there’s some promise there, so I want to see how that comes to fruition. If they were permitted in july, they could be under construction now,” said Janz.

In a news release earlier this month, the City says the survey will inform discussions about changes to zoning and the district policy.

City councillors will discuss proposed infill changes on February 10th.