Horse Hills North East ASP Decision
On Wednesday Council decided to approve 40 years of new supply of predominantly low-density residential development in the Horse Hills area in North East Edmonton. The reports and bylaw can be accessed here.
Horse Hills ASP Map. Click to enlarge.
It was inevitable. It was more than 30 years in the making. And yes, it’s fair to help landowners on all sides of the issue know what’s planned.
It’s true that land supply is becoming scarce in that quadrant of the city and though estimates vary, there are fewer than 5-10 years of existing supply. It is prudent to bring on more supply, especially given the job growth expected nearby in the Edmonton Energy and Technology Park, which will create new demand.
Meanwhile, demand is still strong for suburban low-density housing. And why not? The land is cheaper and the infrastructure and structures are new. With my 59-year-old fixer-upper house and crumbling uneven sidewalks, even I can see the appeal. And yes, many of the new and existing jobs are closer to these proposed neighbourhoods. So, no doubt, there is a market for the proposed housing.
I can’t deny that those are today’s economic realities for urban development. Given today’s realities, much of this plan makes sense. In fact, it has some really promising possibilities for integrating small-scale community food production, innovative ‘low-impact’ servicing and the potential for a proper town centre, hopefully linked with LRT.
For the first time, we did get some high level information about the costs to the City of supporting this growth (Mack Male’s offered some highlights of the report here). I think it was probably low on costs and high on the revenue forecast. Nevertheless, it showed what is the case for each of our low-density neighbourhoods, including mine, which is that we collect less in revenues than we face in costs. This isn’t particular to Edmonton – it is like this in most Alberta communities. We offset this either by subsidy from the non-residential tax base, other general revenues like the EPCOR dividend, or by delaying investments in infrastructure construction or repair.
It follows that denser communities make more efficient use of infrastructure, and therefore are more cost efficient. And we’ve made gains – these neighbourhoods are much denser than older Edmonton neighbourhoods, again, including mine. But the City is talking about adding density in my neighbourhood, which I agree with, and on the airport lands and other sites, and one of the strongest arguments is that it makes for a more efficient and affordable city.
On the food and agriculture question, while I am sympathetic in principle to the calls for preserving agricultural lands, the economics don’t support it unless you have a willing landowner, ready to forego the potential gains of development. Some advocates were calling for a large swath of land to be permanently protected; however, for the City to impose this or negotiate this would have meant compensation in the tens or hundreds of millions to landowners intent on development – so that was a non-starter. I still do think there is opportunity to look at long-term agricultural land preservation, and building a local food economy – but this should be in a regional context, where the lands are still affordable and the economics stands a chance. I encourage food security advocates to not lose heart, and to consider rallying around this as a regional issue.
But the remaining agricultural and market garden land owners who wanted to continue to operate their businesses have been significantly impeded by this plan. I had initially hoped this ASP would cerate some exciting opportunities to work with the cluster along 197 Avenue near the river to plan a neighbourhood and that integrated them. And even though there was significant public support for their protection and sustainability, the plan doesn’t protect them. At best it tolerates them. And because of the conceptual provincial road alignment, their long-term future is in doubt.
I could have supported the southern half of this (neighbourhoods 1-3), because that’s today’s housing market reality. We are only at the beginning of offering more city-wide choice in our housing market. There is work ahead to encourage a supply of more jobs in the core to support infill housing demand. And while the LRT network to support better mobility is growing, it is moving slowly.
But this is not only today’s decision; this is at least a 40-year decision (and beyond as we service and repair approved areas). Thinking ahead, I think we could have done better.
I think we could have found a way to better accommodate the cluster of remaining farmers, even perhaps around the provincial road. I don’t have the answer, but I’m not sure we tried hard enough to find one.
And I think that in less than forty years (if cost continue to rise, as distances grow, as demographics change, as traffic gets worse, and if tastes change as a result) that the communities we’re building then will be different from the ones approved yesterday – moderately denser, more efficient, more walkable, better connected to great transit, and with more mixed employment.
There is room for the plan to change and evolve over time so I have hope that as it is implemented its ambitions can rise.
8 thoughts on “Horse Hills North East ASP Decision”
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What is this proposed regional ring road? Why is it running through the city? Where might one find information about this?
Councillor Iveson,
Your comments about this development very clearly set out the priorities that needed addressing. As you say, the food producers in this scenario are the ones that lost out in this ASP. I truly hope at the stage of Neighbourhood Structure Plans, this sad oversight can be corrected. There should be reasonable accomodation for these food producers and others who want to join them. There could be a thriving food-production economy, a terrific tourist destination, and value-added retail food operations. Thank you for this overview.
Hi Don:
You state ” Some advocates were calling for a large swath of land to be permanently protected; however, for the City to impose this or negotiate this would have meant compensation in the tens or hundreds of millions to landowners intent on development”, but I am wondering why these landowners would need to be compensated. Was re-zoning already promised to these landowners or was there anything prearranged? I had thought that the owners holding out for development were simply “hoping” for the development that would eventually come.
In brief, what implicit contract or promise was there in place that would have forced compensation by the city?
Thanks for your hard work and excellent online presence/accessibility.
Cheers,
MacK Marshall
Councillor Iveson,
Thanks for clearing some of your views as we left Council wondering what caused you to vote “no”. Thank you for being patient in City Council.
For your readers our organization represents slightly more than 100 landowners of all sizes in the Hose Hill Community.
As one who participated in the Stakeholder Advisory Group for this ASP, there were more than enough opportunities for these ag producers to incorporate the idea of an ag zone and contiguous as you suggest. I must tell you it was 600ha ONLY. There was no option. They as you know and apparently most do not, they required some of the land owned by our members to accomplish this. It was that way during “Fresh”, only when they did not get it they came to Council with a changed tone. It was asked at almost every SAG meeting if they had made the commitment in land preservation, to commit their ag land in perpetuity through the Edmonton Area Land Trust (EALT). As you see in this ASP, it is not? They want to keep their options open. This contiguous land option would have been simple for Council to decide on, if their own members would have opted to protect their lands instead of selling much of it to the development companies. It was contiguous before selling.
Bottom line, annexation through the Province made it clear to the City of Edmonton that all the land annexed was going to be ultimately developed as “Urban” that was in 1982. These same NE producers were here then. That is when the fight was lost and ALL of us knew the consequences in the future. Some quit, retired and some persevered knowing the ultimate sacrifice was inevitable? Maybe that’s why some capitalized in and around 2000? We as a community for 32 years now have supported waiting until this land was absolutely needed to keep it for them as ag. Two past MDP’s by the City of Edmonton also said “ag is an interim use only”. This is why we feel betrayed by these people.
NEEA is not against these producers from continuing their operations, fact is we want them too but on the land they own. Not once have you or anyone heard NEEA say to pave them over. They created their non contiguous situation, they want the City to fix it. They even want you to support the highway to affect someone else and not them? Someone will be affected it just can’t be them? NEEA represents 25 members who will lose their houses, land, memories, dreams and futures when/ if this highway comes to fruition. They know and understand their situation. As long as the Province deals with them fairly…their OK with it! 25 resident landowners to 3 farmers who have 300 acres between them. We know what the Province is going to say.
We hope this gives our position some understanding that this issue has existed for some time. Residents here have seen an insurmountable change in this fine City. We were plucked from Sturgeon County with little say and became an unwanted part of the City. We for 32 years have fought to keep development out that no one else wanted and told there will be no good development that we do want? As for the highway, again no one wants it but we get it!
Thank you
NEEA Executive
In my option the Agricultural Producers need to quit whining and start acting. Either within the existing framework or come up with solutions. They can verbalize what is wrong, but they can’t provide a viable solution. The land in this area is not special for farming. The farmers have known for 32 years that the Province gave the City this land for urban growth. If they want to continue farming they need to start now to move their infrastructures outside of the City limits, which some of them already have.
The Agricultural Producers and GEA were noticeably absent when the Agricultural land on the West side of the Manning Freeway was zoned Industrial. That land is just as viable, but these groups did not support the farmers with their concerns when that ASP was before Council. We believe that only a small group of farmer are making a large fuss.
We were “willing landowners, willing to forego the potential gains of development” and this plan did nothing to protect us. It was possible to put my, and Norbest Farms land in one neighborhood and it was possible to move the highway to the south, off of our land. There has been no studies done on this highway. Therefore it was premature to include it in the ASP. At every step of the way it makes it harder and harder to preserve our lands as food growing lands for Edmonton. In every step of the process the developers get one step closer to putting us out of business. I outlined to council several times what we at Riverbend Gardens needed to remain viable in our city. It was in their power to help us retain our lands for growing food. I want to remain in Edmonton as a community leader in our local food economy. I asked council to help me and they choose to go ahead with this development. I am not against development, I believe there was room in the HHASP to include agriculture as PART of the development for our city. Thank you Don Iveson for asking some good questions, and for being willing to explore my vision, and for voting against this HHASP.
Janelle Herbert
Riverbend Gardens
The provincial highway connection was part of an outer ring road concept the province was pushing. They’ve backed off the idea of a ring, at least for now, but there are still a number of highway upgrades needed in the region. The Capital Region Board took a position on this in their Integrated Regional Transportation Master Plan (map: page 20) which shows the river crossing as part of the ‘heavy haul’ highway network.