Edmonton city council passes massive zoning overhaul after days of public hearings

A major revamp of Edmonton's zoning rules that will shape the city for decades has been approved by city council. 

Council has passed the new zoning bylaw 11-2 Monday, with councillors Jennifer Rice and Karen Principe voting against. 

The decision follows nearly 300 Edmontonians sharing their views at a public hearing last week — with just slightly more than half speaking against the bylaw.

It's the first major overhaul of the city zoning rules in decades.

The city is shrinking the number of zones from 46 to 24 in an effort to align more closely with The City Plan, a long-term outlook that imagines a more dense, environmentally-friendly urban space as the city grows toward a population of two million.

The bylaw allows for buildings of up to three storeys in all neighbourhoods, and encourages different types of development to be built more easily in all residential areas.

Council is now making multiple motions for subsequent work on the bylaw addressing many of the concerns raised during the hearing.

The motions are not an instant change to the new bylaw and would first require a report coming back to council and then a vote.

"This bylaw supports affordability. It makes it easier for affordable housing developers and seniors housing developers to build housing our community needs by reducing unnecessary red tape," Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said during the meeting Monday.

"It provides the opportunity for Edmontonians to attain different housing types for their needs across the city."

Rice told CBC that there are concerns Edmontonians have that are not yet addressed in the bylaw and that's why she voted no. 

"I don't think for me at this moment I'm comfortable to say yes to this bylaw, but I do believe that our city needs a new bylaw," she said.  

Critics of the bylaw cited a lack of regulation for developers and environmental issues among the top concerns. Others said the bylaw didn't do much to improve housing affordability, despite the desire from councillors for it to help that issue. 

Kevin Taft, with the Coalition for Better Infill, said he felt like council bowed to the wants of developers. 

"The people of Edmonton elected council to represent them, not to represent developers, and I think expected council to negotiate on these issues with developers and instead, council just abdicated," he said in an interview. 

"As this unfolds over the next years, I think it's going to be quite a shock for the people of Edmonton."

He said the group is not opposed to infill, but rather they advocate for improving the process that allows infill to happen. 

"There's a host of ways this bylaw could be improved. It could have, for example, require better energy performance, access to solar power, some of those issues that are so important for sustainability," he said.

He said he also wished the city would have held off on passing the bylaw to address the concerns of residents.

'Extremely hopeful'

On the other side of the coin, some are very glad the bylaw passed.

"I am extremely excited and I'm extremely hopeful," Yash Bhandari, the co-founder of Grow Together Edmonton, told CBC. 

"I think across the country, housing has gotten to, frankly, crisis levels ... and so what this represents is a really, really strong step towards enabling the kind of housing that's going to help us stay affordable."

Bhandari said he thinks the affordability aspect is the biggest win out of the bylaw. 

"If we don't allow for more infill housing, the alternative that we get is more sprawl, more homes built, more new subdivisions built out on the edge of the city that contribute to our greenhouse gas emissions, to our frankly massive infrastructure deficit," he said. "So while this isn't maybe the perfect document for everyone, I think it's a massive step forward."

The bylaw comes into effect Jan. 1.