Edmonton Passes Zoning Reform to Revive Traditional Housing
The city of Edmonton, AB. (Source: Wikimedia Commons.)
The city of Edmonton, Alberta, has passed substantial zoning reforms that officials and housing advocates hope will generate more infill construction and help the fast-growing city add housing to keep pace. The revised zoning bylaw, which passed city council by an 11–2 vote in October and takes effect in January 2024, will allow more housing types in more settings, including three stories by right, more mixed-use development, and reduce the number of administrative zones within the city from 46 to 24.
The preface to the new zoning revisions says the changes are intended to allow for a range of small-scale residential construction. Speaking in support before the passage of the measure, Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said that by focusing on infill within city limits, the new rules allow Edmontonians to use the existing infrastructure and services that are already in place. He contrasted that with expanding suburban development that imposes large infrastructure costs and an economic burden on the commuters who move there.
Edmonton City Councilor Ashley Salvador, who worked on and voted for the bill, can describe exactly what she’s hoping for from the reforms: “Infill can be row housing with basement suites and laneway homes, it can be courtyard-style housing, it can be live-work units, it can be a mixed-use project with retail on the main and living above.”
Salvador describes Edmonton as a “classic prairie city,” and says that its lack of geographic boundaries has led to a low-density, auto-centric development pattern.
She says that Edmonton is now trying to course correct, and has been on a multi-year roll in aligning its policies to enable small-scale development. The city eliminated parking minimums in 2020, and that same year passed a new City Plan that ended single-family zoning and called for 50% of all development to be infill. Edmonton has been less affected by the affordability crisis than many of its peers, and Salvador credits it for forward thinking and encouraging the types of housing it needs to stay ahead of the curve.
City officials also tout an easier permitting process, which they hope will help less experienced builders to tackle modest housing projects.
Revitalizing the city neighborhoods she represents is one of Salvador’s main inspirations. She hopes the combined land-use reforms will “inject more folks, more families, greater population into these communities [and] have significant impacts on the vibrancy and physical viability” of older city neighborhoods, many of which have lost population over the long term. She says she often hears from seniors who want to age in place, and traditional housing types such as cottage courts could better support independent living.
Another aspect of Edmonton’s City Plan calls for shifting transportation from private car trips to transit or human power by 50%. Here, too, the zoning changes allowing for more housing types and mixed-use development are meant to encourage walkable, bikeable neighborhoods.
Salvador ultimately connects the dots to the bottom line. Good land-use policy is good fiscal policy, and if these changes are executed as projected, the reduced burdens on maintenance could enable Edmonton to offer homeowners a 5% residential tax reduction. “And that is because we're growing in a more fiscally sustainable pattern,” says Salvador.
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Ben Abramson is a Staff Writer at Strong Towns. In his career as a travel journalist with The Washington Post and USA TODAY, Ben has visited many destinations that show how Americans were once world-class at building appealing, prosperous places at a human scale. He has also seen the worst of the suburban development pattern, and joined Strong Towns because of its unique way of framing the problems we can all see and intuit, and focusing on local, achievable solutions. A native of Washington, DC, Ben lives in Venice, Florida; summers in Atlantic Canada; and loves hiking, biking, kayaking, and beachcombing.