Edmonton city councillor and mayoral candidate calls for infill moratorium
Tim Cartmell says his motion will target ‘monolithic’ mid-block developments
Mayoral candidate and Ward pihêsiwin Coun. Tim Cartmell is calling for a moratorium on infill development and said he plans to move a motion at Edmonton city council's public hearing next week targeting large mid-block buildings.
Cartmell announced his plan in a news release on Tuesday, saying the city's infill strategy has moved too fast and "we need to pause, reflect, and fix what's broken before we approve more of the same."
The release said his motion would place a moratorium on all new infill development, but Cartmell said in an interview that it would apply primarily to mid-block developments while the city re-examines plans for its 15 "districts," or collections of neighbourhoods.
Cartmell said it's not the smaller infill developments — like duplexes and skinny homes — angering people in older neighbourhoods, but the large, monolithic buildings that have been popping up between single-family homes.
"It's those very provocative developments that we need to get in front of," he said.
Cartmell's announcement comes about a week before a public hearing in which amendments to Edmonton's revamped zoning bylaw will be discussed.
The zoning bylaw, which came into effect last year and streamlined the city's zoning regulations to allow for more infill development and density across the city, has been divisive.
Its proponents say it is accelerating housing development during a national housing affordability crisis — there was a 30 per cent increase in approved units last year, after the bylaw was enacted — and will save the city money since it's much more expensive to service new neighbourhoods.
Critics of the bylaw have taken issue with the pace and scale of development it permits, saying more large multi-unit buildings will fundamentally change their neighbourhoods' character. They have raised concerns about traffic, parking, tree loss and emergency vehicle access, among other issues.
Cartmell, who voted to support zoning bylaw renewal and wrote in a blog post last summer that he "absolutely support[s] infill," said a significant amount of the work done to rewrite the bylaw was positive.
He said he doesn't want a return to discretionary approvals, but rather a departure from a "one-size-fits-all" approach. He said neighbourhoods' differences should be incorporated into the city's infill policies.
"I fear that if we don't actually begin listening to the people that are affected, we're going to lose it all," he said.
Evan Wood, a spokesperson with SaveYEG, a group fighting against recent zoning changes, said he was pleased to see Cartmell call for a pause on infill.
He said SaveYEG wants to see mature neighbourhoods protected against growth that is unreasonable and unsafe.
"This is a good start and I'm hopeful some other councillors will jump on board," he said.
Jacob Dawang, an advocate with Grow Together Edmonton, called Cartmell's proposal a "completely irresponsible move" that could lead to higher taxes, rents and housing costs.
"It's such a ridiculous proposition for a big city like Edmonton, that's growing like we are, that it does take me aback," he said.
WATCH | Eightplexes have already been debated at city hall:
Edmonton Mayor Amarjeet Sohi, who is not running for re-election this fall, said the city needs to continue on the path of allowing more infill development for financial and environmental reasons.
"When opportunities come to refurbish or demolish and build new, creating conditions to build a fourplex or duplex or sixplex is the right approach to take," he said at an unrelated news conference on Tuesday.
City council's urban planning committee voted earlier this month to support amending the zoning bylaw to reduce the number of allowable units in mid-block row houses from eight to six.
Cartmell has said he intends to support that change.
Sean Sedgwick, the executive director of the Infill Development in Edmonton Association (IDEA), urged city councillors in a letter Tuesday to not approve that reduction and other proposed changes.
In a statement to CBC News, he said restrictive zoning practices constraining the supply of housing are a major cause of housing unaffordability in other Canadian cities and calling for a moratorium on infill homes would recreate the problem in Edmonton.
"IDEA firmly believes that infill will help our mature neighbourhoods remain sustainable, vibrant places that even more people can enjoy," he said.
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