This is The City to Beat on Housing Reform

neighbors over nimes that's a sticker we saw in the back of a sign in Edmonton Alberta and it gives a hint as to some of the attitudes that make this maybe the most forward-thinking city for housing reform in North America just walking around you'll see a ton of new infill Housing Development that's been built over the past 5 or 10 years these two old Standalone houses were redeveloped into a townhouse complex with 16 homes ranging from 1 to three bedrooms with a wheelchair accessible Courtyard in the middle and solar panels on the roof nearby this aging church was torn down to build a new more energy efficient church and a 16 home nonprofit townhouse development targeted at large families with three and five-bedroom units around the block from these two developments you can also find lots of skinnies twostory houses on half-size Lots usually replacing one-story buildings those are just a few examples from one neighborhood but exploring the city we saw new housing nearly everywhere skinny homes semi-detached tow houses lots of mid-rises and highrises too those skinny homes were legalized in 2013 resulting in hundreds of approvals in the next few years in 2020 Edmonton became the first major city in Canada to eliminate parking mandates inspired by Ambrose place a 42 unit Supportive Housing site that under the previous rules was forced to spend a million dollars on a spot parade that goes largely empty this more recent Supportive Housing site used that Newfound freedom to build a fraction of the parking but a dozen more units for people transitioning out of homelessness then in 2023 we saw the big headline a major zoning overhaul that legalized town houses and small apartments up to eight units in three stories across the entire city it also cut the number of zones in half and opened up opportunities for services and Retail within neighborhoods this new zoning reform is a big deal and it's what we'd like to see other cities try to match or even beat projects like this one that we saw were actually approved by Council before the new zoning but from now on they're going to be allowed by default without having to argue to councel or neighbors how much do these reforms help and what else does Edmonton do we were in the city recently for the winter cycling Congress and we happened to meet a local developer at a cafe my name's Jesse lefrance with jail developments the parking reforms are big deal so it's it's really being a incredibly positive impact to our market and we're seeing the results of it now in the term in terms of a lower cost per door um completed unit they still provide parking but they can be more flexible and provide a less when demand is lower like if the units are smaller or near Transit we have a lot more levers to pull on in our Market to to guide price and make sure we can deliver housing at an at an economical um uh output Edmonton's new zoning or form opens up more density so we can start to plan out subdivisions in a much more efficient uh layout it also means less Administration and uncertainty compared to negotiating site specific zoning we no longer have to uh work under a Direct Control District that can be problematic for both Administration and Council to administer the approvals process at Emon is generally faster and more streamlined and that's a really big deal what we were able to do based off of the policy in the city of Edmonton is we're able to deliver housing in the same calendar year that we purchased the land that is not possible um in other jurisdictions and he had a lot of praise for Edmonton actively wanting to support home building and affordability they're always looking at means and ways to improve um policy and it's been evident if you look every four to six years there's improvements between bylaws and I think it's really cool to be part of a a municipality where we're ever changing and we're evolving we're future proofing uh our communities there's a lot pointing to Edmonton leading the pack on housing policy in Canada the Canadian homebuilders Association rated Edmonton number one out of 21 municipalities for homeb building considering approval timelines fees in the planning process a report from Canada's Federal Housing Authority a few years ago found that Edmonton has the most elastic housing supply of the five big cities they looked at which means that Supply is able to ramp up to demand Edmonton also has the highest rental vacancy rate of the 10 big Metro areas which gives a bit more power to tenants over landlords can you guess what the result of all this is would you be surprised if we told you that Edmonton has some of the most affordable housing in Canada if we focus on the 10 biggest Metro areas Edmonton has the third lowest rent for two-bedroom apartments it also has one of the lowest average home prices at about 400,000 which is about a third of what a home costs in Vancouver in Toronto that's the average across all homes detached homes are higher while tow houses and condos are lower Edmonton is a good antidote to what we've called housing nihilism the idea that reforms are pointless and expensive housing is just a fact of life many people in expensive cities like Toronto and Vancouver are so used to high rents and Home Ownership being Out Of Reach that they develop a sort of learned helplessness that leads them to be pessimistic or even dismissive of housing reform whenever we mention Edmonton and suggest that the housing crisis in other cities might be self-inflicted we encounter some skepticism some people wonder if Edmonton is just affordable because nobody wants to live there no Edmonton is one of the fastest growing Metro areas in the country granted Toronto and Vancouver would probably have grown more than they did if not for their self-inflicted housing shortage but Edmonton is not a Rust Belt City that's only cheap because the population is stagnating or declining people also wonder whether housing is cheap in Edmonton because the city is less affluent but again that's wrong Alberta has some of the highest median incomes in the country and if we adjust home prices to incomes Edmonton does better not worse and finally people will ask how we can possibly think that Edmonton has lessons for places like Vancouver Sydney San Francisco or New York when Edmonton is a smaller city with a lot more developable land due to a lack of mountains and water that one is true but if your city has to house more people with less land shouldn't you be significantly more open to density than Edmonton what we have here is a midsized city on the Canadian prairies that's legalized more density by right than most bigger land constrained cities and from what we can tell they have a culture among planners Council and staff of actually wanting to see things built instead of making symbolic reforms if you're in a bigger you're a land constrained metro area and you really want to move the needle on housing you should go well beyond Edmonton and legalize something more like eight-story midrise Apartments literally everywhere obviously get rid of parking mandates too what do you think this is the 1960s one of the big questions we had on our visit to Edmonton was what makes this city So Pro housing to be clear they had their debates and all of these projects we mentioned had their opponents when this three story building was proposed one local called it a towering monstrosity another comment said this is not needed or wanted this is for money to go into the pockets of developers this is not for anyone else's benefit but there was also a lot of support to those who worry about the increased sity I say hooray for density we live in a city our neighborhoods should reflect this I find it unfair how they feel they can dictate the rental opportunities this community should offer one of the explanations for pro housing attitudes we heard is that Edmonton is one of the youngest cities in Canada with a pretty young Council who are more attuned to affordability and less hesitant about change some people also cited Edmonton's culture being more blue collar and less snobby than other cities finally Edmonton is also a left-leaning city within Canada's most conservative Province and we have to wonder whether that results in a political culture that mixes a progressive concern for equality and fairness with a positive orientation toward entrepreneurship and production so far we've been pretty optimistic about this city but there are also some major challenges Edmonton has the healthiest rental vacancy rate in the country and that's great but it's down significantly from where it was even a year before the next few years are probably going to put Edmonton's housing policies to the test especially for renters also the fact that Edmonton has a lot of open land without water or mountains to stop development is both a blessing and a curse Greenfield development is easy and cheap in the short term but the affordability can be a mirage if it disproportionately increases household Transportation costs or the city's infrastructure liabilities we're not sure any North American city has a coherent story about the right balance between infield development and outward expansion or how to build better and more sustainable suburbs Edmonton also has visible challenges with homelessness as well as drug addiction and mental health in certain parts of the city especially Northeast of downtown from what we saw this won't be completely new to you if you've been to places like Vancouver or San Francisco but it's more than you'd expect from a city that's relatively affordable Studies have shown that homelessness tends to track pretty closely with unaffordable housing and that makes sense it's a lot easier to become homeless in a city where rent is $3,000 a month than when you can get a place to live for a th000 from what we learned from locals the challenges in Edmonton are linked to it being a gateway to Northern Canada which includes Rural and remote commun communities places without a lot of jobs and places that follow the oil and gas industry's boom and bus cycle where people are attracted by high wages but can end up jobless in a few years we're not going to pretend to understand the solutions to addiction and mental health but we do know that providing safe and autonomous housing is the foundation to alleviating homelessness that means Emergency Shelters for the short term but ideally transitional supportive and rent geared to income housing for the medium term this isn't something the city can tackle on its own though and Edmonton is actually significantly underfunded from The Province on shelter beds compared to Calgary according to the mayor if lesson number one from Edmonton is that good reforms really can create a sane housing market that works for the middle class lesson number two is that people will still fall through the cracks and that you need to tackle homelessness head-on with housing and other supports fortunately good reforms like eliminating parking mandates make it easier and cheaper to provide those supports Edmonton has real challenges with sprawl transport a and homelessness but overall this is a city we feel optimistic about when you follow housing reform you see a lot of places that are timid at best and hostile at worst whether it's that California City that declared itself a mountainline habitat to avoid having to allow duplexes or the mayor of wior Ontario saying that allowing fourplexes on quiet streets would sacrifice the makeup of our communities that mayor was named the chair of Ontario's housing supp action plan implementation team Edmonton is one of a handful of cities actually taking the problem seriously and you can see the results just walking around or browsing Google Street View housing is actually getting built different types of housing different densities and Heights in different kinds of neighborhoods thanks for watching through to the end of the video don't forget to bike and subscribe and a special thanks to our supporters on patreon [Music] that

Channel: Oh The Urbanity!

Views: 126,071

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Length: 12min 9sec (729 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024