WHAT HAPPENED AT THE LAST #YEG PUBLIC HEARING

We’re thrilled to celebrate the passage of the new Edmonton Zoning Bylaw 20001! This is a significant milestone for Edmonton that will shape the future of development in our city for years to come. The public hearing for the new bylaw began on October 16; after hearing from 134 speakers in favour and 159 speakers in opposition, Council voted 11-2 to approve Zoning Bylaw 20001 on October 23.

LEARN ABOUT THE NEW ZONING BYLAW

At Situate, we’re committed to supporting builders, developers, and landowners in navigating the new bylaw.

We know there’s a lot of curiosity and questions swirling around out there, so to help folks find their bearings we’re hosting a webinar on November 2 on the new residential infill zones and their implications. 

➡️ Register for the webinar here.

We’ve also got lots of resources on our website (and more to come)!

➡️ Overview of Zoning Bylaw 20001
➡️ Overview of the new Residential Small Scale (RS) zone (replacing the RF1 and RF3 zones)
➡️ Overview of the new Medium Scale Residential (RM) zone (replacing the RF6, RA7, and RA8 zones)
➡️ This Zone In newsletter: truly the easiest way to stay in-the-know about what’s going on at City Council public hearings on land development.

INTERESTING (AND IMPORTANT)

After Zoning Bylaw 20001 was approved on October 23, Councillors made 27 (!) subsequent motions related to the new bylaw, either for City staff to come back and provide more information on certain topics, or to come back with amendments to the newly passed Zoning Bylaw.

Not all of the motions passed (you can check them all out here), but there were some close calls and some important themes that came up.

Councillor Knack wanted to introduce contextual height limits in the new residential small scale (RS) zone, meaning that the height of a new house would depend on the height of the neighbour’s house (so basically the Mature Neighbourhood Overlay 2.0). The idea was narrowly voted down by Council.

Councillor Cartmell wanted to limit density in the new residential small scale (RS) zone to half of what had been allowed in the RF3 zone. That idea was also narrowly defeated by Council.

On the other hand, a motion by Councillor Rutherford to incentivize multi-unit housing passed, as did motions to restart heritage strategy/zoning work, as well as to explore different ways to address climate resilience in planning and development. We’ll be keeping tabs on these items as they come back to Council for discussion over the next year.

WHAT’S UP AT PUBLIC HEARING ON NOVEMBER 6th

The November 6 public hearing has a total of thirteen applications (twenty-seven agenda items), including nine infill applications. 

The infill applications include four industrial applications, one institutional/urban services application, one commercial application, and three residential applications.

WHAT SITUATE’S TAKING TO COUNCIL

Situate’s taking an RA7/RMh16 application in Strathcona to Council on November 6. This is an interesting property sandwiched between the top of the river bank and the noise attenuation barrier on 99 St. 

🍿 You can follow along with the action via Edmonton City Council’s YouTube channel; the action starts at 9:30 am on Monday, November 6.

NEWS FROM SITUATE

NEWS FROM THE CITY

The City of Edmonton is extending an invitation to participate in the grand finale of District Planning engagement. From October 23 to December 1 you can participate in engagement sessions to find out more about the plans and  let the project team know what you think. Key questions to investigate: do the district plans align with the intent of City Plan? Are the width and length of nodes and corridors as envisioned in City Plan? What is allowed in the urban mix policy area? Does the urban mix policy area align with zoning that’s already in place? Go find out… 

CITY BUILDING EVENTS

The University of Alberta is hosting their annual “Celebration of Planning” event on November 9. If you love talking about planner-y things like walkability, open option parking and how Edmonton is the best at zoning, this is the place to be!

READER FEEDBACK

Arjay thanks for reading this far! We send this newsletter in the hopes of making it easier and more fun to understand (1) what’s going on at #yeg city council public hearings on land development and (2) zoning, infill, and the land (re)development process in general. If there’s a topic you’d like to know about let us know and we’ll do our best to write about it!

DISCLAIMER

Zone In is created by Situate Inc. and is for informational purposes only. The content in Zone In is not to be construed as planning, zoning, real estate or any other professional strategy or advice.