‘Darth Vader’ design prompts council to to look at infill rules
Edmonton councillors voted to reexamine how the city regulates the design of infill going into Edmonton’s stable, postwar neighbourhoods Wednesday.
“Build nice stuff that fits in. Don’t build Darth Vader architecture that’s polarizing,” said Ward 10 Coun. Michael Walters, leading the change in approach after being shocked by an 8.9-metre-high black wall now confronting one homeowner in the neighbourhood of Lansdowne.
“Any redevelopment at all that happens in a fairly stable mature neighbourhood should make an effort to respect the context and fit into that neighbourhood,” he said, before the motion at council’s urban planning committee. Councillors will get a report from administration with options to regulate design next year.
Only 34 property owners have split lots in Ward 10 in the last three years. Several created long, narrow skinny homes that are “polarizing” and turning residents against new development, Walters said, sharing pictures of one with black metal siding and a blocky shape that cuts the neighbour’s view of the street.
“In an old, more rundown area, it’s ridiculous to assume you want to fit into that context. That’s a fullthrottle renew,” he said, suggesting design requirements should be more loose there. “(But) this gradual renewal ... should pay heed to the existing architecture.”
City officials are midway through what they call Infill 2.0 — a study of how the city can encourage more medium-density development along transit corridors and near new employment hubs and activity centres. Officials gave an update Wednesday and also reviewed why Edmonton’s small-scale infill is not taking off the way many expected. Skinny homes are being built and sold in a select few neighbourhoods, usually not in economically challenged neighbourhoods that could most use the redevelopment.
Plus, city officials said most of the brownstones, courtyard apartments and other medium-density development they believe would lead to more affordable homes for the average homebuyer can’t be built under existing zoning rules without variances.
Developer Mick Graham, president of the Infill Development Association of Edmonton, said extra charges, restrictions and long delays mean some row-house projects even on main roads can’t be built. Two skinny homes in the suburbs can be built and sold before an identical home in a mature neighbourhood gets permits, said Graham. The increased land costs and permitting delays add almost $100,000 to the cost of the house, with delays costing a developer or
Build nice stuff that fits in. Don’t build Darth Vader architecture that’s polarizing ... Make an effort to respect the context.
homeowner $500 a week.
“Under the zoning regulations we’re working with today, it’s very, very difficult,” Graham told the urban planning committee.
Councillors also voted to build data-based profiles of each neighbourhood to help residents identify good locations for this middle density. City officials will be bringing an initial action plan on middle density to the public in early 2018.
Resident Irene Blain of West Jasper Place suggested a new approach called “form-based” zoning could help. Form-based zoning focuses on how the outside of a building fits the context, rather than regulating how many people and uses can be inside. That could mean if two similar houses sit side by side, one could be a single-family home while the other might have three suites and a café.