@kirstengoa
Back to school! MBA (CED), CBU '28 🤞🏻 Mom of 5 (2 sets of twins) Grandma of 1 Change-maker #yeg #yegCC Land-use is the most powerful tool a city has to address: climate crisis housing crisis social inequality fiscal stability
Anyone who says we don’t need zoning reform because we should just build subsidized housing should go watch a public hearing on any proposed project.
Edmonton city council just wasted an entire day over adding 30 affordable units.
A screenshot of a digital voting record from the Edmonton City Council regarding "Midblock Redevelopment Amendments." A prominent red banner at the top states the motion was **Defeated** with a vote count of **4 - 8 - 0**. The specific breakdown is as follows: * **In Favour (4):** R. Clarke, M. Elliott, T. Parmar, and K. Principe. * **Opposed (8):** A. Knack, M. Janz, J. Morgan, E. Rutherford, A. Salvador, A. Stevenson, K. Tang, and J. Wright. * **Abstain/Conflict:** None. * **Absent (1):** A. Paquette.
BREAKING: We're staying at 8 homes per lot!
Edmonton City Council today voted against reducing the maximum number of homes per lot from 8 to 6 in the RS zone! #yeg #yegcc
I’ve been thinking about Canada’s intention to become more economically independent from the United States, and to connect more with Europe.
We should do the same thing with our city-building.
Our city-building has always been too influenced by the U.S, especially with car dependency.
Thoughts?
Unbelievably short-sighted. Growing urban populations need the kinds of infrastructure appropriate to big cities: restricted pubic transit rights-of-way, safe pedestrian routes, and bike lanes. More people, fewer cars.
Also: cars don’t pay taxes, people do - including people who don’t drive.
So much of our urban tree canopy is close to the same age and mostly the same kinds of trees. It's a monoculture. Much like neighbourhoods with almost exclusively one type of housing. If we want to protect it, we need more diversity and we need to plant young trees, not just protect old ones. #yegcc
Hey Edmonton urbanists! Thought I'd start a starter pack for us. Let me know if you want to be in it or have suggestions! go.bsky.app/E7u9toC
Housing heterogeneity should also bring a more diverse and resilient tree canopy and natural spaces. When my mom and her family moved to Chicago in 1963, my grandmother was asked if she would ever move back to Edmonton.
She said no, because there were NO TREES! #yeg #yegCC
WATCH: Seriously, if you’re following ANY bike-lane debate, you HAVE TO WATCH this news story. You actually can’t make this up. Ford claims without evidence that bike-lanes are bad for small business, and THE ACTUAL BUSINESS ASSOCIATION obliterates him with data.
Safe bike-lanes mean business.
James Kalyan lives in Belgravia and his ideal home is a townhome. Opposes all amendments because they would make growth less sustainable. Argues against a hard unit cap and just for the envelope to be regulated. The current RS zone is making a better city and helping us catch up to our debt.
When neighbourhoods stagnate, we're not protecting them, we're weakening them. Pushing people out to the suburbs is not sustainable. ZBR is working. We often say we prefer rowhomes when towers are proposed and now we're getting it. Public engagement doesn't mean public agreement.
LAST PANEL starting with @kirstengoa.bsky.social! Has spent a career advocating for communities experiencing change. Their bungalow houses a huge family out of necessity, not out of choice. Having missing middle housing choice is a huge win. Lets children live in their communities.
Kevin Taft is referencing the cruel game of musical chairs video and says it's disturbing that some councillors and housing advocacy groups have been spreading it.
BTW have you seen this video? 👇
youtu.be/EQGQU0T6NBc?...
@pleasuremotors.bsky.social is now speaking. Talking about sending kids into classes of 30-40 kids in the suburbs. One of the levers council has is to repopulate mature neighbourhoods. Also talking about higher levels of infrastructure in mature neighbourhoods that can be used by new neighbours.
It’s easy to say the city is “full” when you have housing and you’re just telling other people that *they* have to go away.
Policies that "protect neighbourhood character" or "keep neighbourhoods stable" rarely achieve that goal. While the outside of neighbourhoods remains the same, everything else changes.
Neighbourhood characters make up the neighbourhood character.
The metro area with the most car-free households in 🇨🇦 is Montreal (18%), followed by Toronto (16%) and Winnipeg (14%).
Quebec City has more car-free than Vancouver!
Calgary and Edmonton have the least car-free households, but still get very respectable LRT ridership by North American standards.
We need to stop using the poor to act as noise barriers for "real communities.
I'm disabled and sleep poorly due to pain. The only step-free homes are apartments in noisy areas.
You can see the problem
I have such a difficult time hearing white privileged home owners complain about the impacts of density in their neighborhoods when I know the realities of the housing crisis & those on the verge of homelessness. This is part of why I spoke at city council today
www.waveedmonton.ca/blog/letter-...
Picture of the Edmonton council chambers.
🧵 Good morning Edmonton. We're live from the council chambers where the Urban Planning Committee will debate reducing housing options.
There are 60 speakers registered so there's a high chance this becomes two days. We'll be live posting so follow along to see how it goes!
An eight unit rowhome in Prince Charles
🚨 ACTION ALERT
This Monday, Council will consider undoing years of housing progress. Back up for debate is reducing the number of units permitted from 8 to 6.
We need your help to push back. Email council now using our easy 30-second tool. 👇
www.growtogetheryeg.com/email-council
Edmonton transit peace officers gave over three million dollars worth of trespass tickets to people with no fixed address in 2024. That’s 90% of all the trespass tickets they gave, and 51% of all tickets of any kind they gave to anyone.
cbc.ca/news/canada/ed…
#yeg #yegcc
New Op-Ed: Edmonton council made right call on rejecting infill cap
In a time where Edmonton is growing the fiscally responsible thing to do was to keep mid-block infill at 8 units, on large enough lots.
Read more 👇
edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...
#yeg #yegcc
If your neighbourhood character depends on excluding people who can't afford a huge single-family home, maybe it's time to change your neighbourhood character for the better.
None of these changes should have been brought forward at all and the timing is highly suspect. And reintroducing uncertainty when we finally had regulations that made sense (and that this Council adopted) is a big middle finger to the housing crisis, those who build homes and those who need them.
We cannot sit idly while some councillors move us back to the era of exclusionary zoning.
Email council now! www.growtogetheryeg.com/action
Housing is good, actually. Doubly so if it can increase our merge stock of non-market housing.
If you prioritize your aesthetic preferences over others having housing, or don’t want people of diverse incomes living near you, or have difficulty handling change, then city living might not be for you.
Please please please everyone take two minutes email your councillor right now and get everyone you know to do so as well. If you've already done it, then do it again. 👇
#yeg #yegcc
www.growtogetheryeg.com/action
NEW OP-ED: Rolling back pro-density zoning restricts housing choice.
When we restrict housing choice, we’re not preserving neighbourhood character: We’re enforcing neighbourhood exclusion.
Read more 👇
edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu...
#yegcc #yegc