FLAWED PLATFORM

Mayor Don Iveson is right to focus on fiscal restraint in the coming city budget, which he warns will be the toughest in a decade. Unfortunately, some parts of his five-point plan unveiled this week to rein in tax increases don’t make sense for Edmonton.

The first plank in his budget platform calls for rolling back the subsidy on suburban growth. Iveson wants homeowners moving into Edmonton’s newest suburbs to pay more for infrastructure such as fire halls, traffic interchanges and recreation centres.

Existing business owners and residents shouldn’t be asked to cover the roughly $1 billion it will take to service new areas planned and under construction, he says.

The mayor wants to make those who benefit most from the new infrastructure pay for it with a local levy on homes not yet built — a tool recently allowed under amended provincial law.

Iveson calls it a fairer approach to development. But how equitable is it to change the rules mid-stream for suburbs that have already been approved?

Is the city really practising fiscal restraint by simply downloading costs to homeowners in new suburbs? And since higher home prices in the outskirts are bound to have a domino effect on the rest of the housing stock, doesn’t that make the city a less affordable place to live?

Iveson wants to use a similar approach to map out user zones in which local residents would pay more to build amenities such as the new Lewis Farms Recreation Centre. How fair is it to ask west-end residents to pay a special levy for a rec facility in their neighbourhood when they have already helped build similar structures in Clareview, Terwillegar and The Meadows?

Will residents who pay extra to get their neighbourhood’s facilities built be given exclusive use or priority access over other Edmontonians?

The plan doesn’t address the fact that these massive recreation centres are popular destinations for users from across the city.

Usage of a new rec centre from people outside its levy zone can also be expected to rise if small neighbourhood pools and single-sheet rinks are axed to cut costs, as the mayor has suggested. If that’s the case, then residents who pay more for a new facility will be subsidizing other parts of Edmonton. That doesn’t seem fair.

Iveson is also calling for a new funding deal with the province. We’ve heard that one before.

That proposal raises perhaps the toughest question of all: where will the cash-strapped provincial government find this extra money for Edmonton?