New year, new zoning: Edmonton's urban planning overhaul will come into effect Monday

On New Year's Day, Edmonton will look much the same from the ground, but its map will have radically changed. 

Edmonton city council approved a complete zoning overhaul in October after days of contentious public hearings. Nearly 300 Edmontonians shared their views, with about half speaking against it.

That new zoning bylaw comes into effect Jan. 1.

As of Monday, all properties in Edmonton have been rezoned from previous zones to their closest equivalents under the new bylaw.

The impacts on your neighbourhood will depend on where you live. The city has put an interactive map online to help residents navigate the rezoning.

Zoning sets the rules for where new buildings should go, what types of buildings they can be and what types of businesses and activities can happen on a property. As the city says, it determines "what can be built where."

The new bylaw shrinks 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 new zones make it easier for developers to build larger infill properties in many neighbourhoods, forgoing the time and cost of rezoning.

A neighbourhood now dominated by single-detached homes could see other types of housing sprout up more easily. There are six new zones specifically for residential (outside rural areas).

Each indicates the maximum number of storeys allowed in that zone:

• Small scale residential: three storeys.
• Small scale flex residential: three storeys.
• Small-medium scale: three or four storeys.
• Small-medium scale transition residential zone: three or four storeys.
• Medium scale residential: four to eight storeys.
• Large scale residential: nine to 20 storeys.

Many neighbourhood overlays — an additional layer of regulations — have also been retired in the new bylaw. Of the 10 that existed in the previous bylaw, only two (Floodplain Protection and North Saskatchewan River Valley and River System Protection) continue to exist while a third (Airport Protection) has been added.

This zoning flexibility also means there may be one less avenue for residents to oppose a project.

If a development permit application meets the regulations in the zoning bylaw, it is considered a permitted use (there are now more of them) and a development permit must be issued.

The development appeal process remains in place through the Subdivision and Development Appeal Board.

Appeals are restricted to certain situations — for example, if a community member believes a planner erred in interpreting the zoning regulations, or approved a permit indicating there were no variances when in fact there was a variance to the regulations.

District plans

Zoning is only the first layer of the city's urban planning map.

It's expected that 2024 will also see administration present for approval the city's district plans, which will have their own impact on neighbourhoods.

Introduced in The City Plan, districts are a collection of neighbourhoods with the goal of meeting most residents' daily needs within a 15-minute walk, bike or transit trip from their home.

Fifteen different districts are being worked on. Within these districts are urban centres of varying scope known as nodes, as well as primary and secondary corridors that support more density along certain routes.

District plans do not themselves change zoning but do clarify the exact locations of these nodes and corridors identified in The City Plan — details that could then be used in a rezoning application to allow for more dense buildings.

The first drafts of the district plans came up at a council committee meeting in early December.

Although the plans have been sent back to administration for tweaking, the initial timeline has them coming back for a public hearing in the spring.