Rules must be loosened to address green goals: builder

Edmonton must reconsider height and zoning regulations for infill housing if it wants to meet its green energy targets, homebuilder Sydney Bond warned council Monday.

Homes that produce as much energy as they use will need extra height allowances for solar panels, she said.

Builders will also need flexibility to reorient the home, adjusting where it sits on the lot to catch the sun.

If not, homeowners may be forced to cut down mature trees.

“We want to save the trees, that’s a priority,” said Bond, project manager with Effect Home Builders, urging a new openness in the next round of consultations.

The city’s goal is to have all new homes meet a “net-zero” standard by 2030, but its zoning rules are just “too prescriptive.”

Council again waded through arguments around the mature neighbourhood overlay Monday, a document that adds additional rules for building in mature neighbourhoods. It’s a document builders say restricts growth and community leagues are fighting to maintain.

Planners will reopen negotiations on several elements, including height restrictions, once this set of amendments are passed.

Monday’s changes keep new homes to 8.9 metres tall, or 21/2 storeys, but make it easier to include a basement suite.

They allow homes to use thicker insulation without losing ceiling height, simplify consultation requirements and let developers shrink some front yards.

The rules were going to ban all new front driveways where rear lanes exist, phasing out existing ones.

But planners made a last-minute change to only apply that rule where a treed boulevard is also present.

Community leagues argued the treed boulevard shouldn’t matter. Cars should not be allowed to cross any sidewalks where children are walking to school and blank-faced front garages make the street less friendly to walk along, they said.

New narrow homes will mean “front driveways and front garages are certain to dominate the streetscape,” warned Bev Zubot, planning analyst for the Edmonton Federation of Community Leagues, predicting it would “fuel the fire of discontent with lot splitting.”

Council sided with the leagues, asking administration to come back in August with a compromise. None of the zoning changes take effect before September.

Many in the infill industry were disappointed in the changes. They’re hoping the next revision allows homes up to 10 metres (three storeys) tall, closer to the street and with rear attached garages, at least in prewar neighbourhoods were existing homes are already taller and lots narrower.