Festivals focus on positives
Residents rally support for city budget investments in older neighbourhoods
Edmonton’s budget debate has so far focused on the negatives of the high cost of building new suburbs, but some city residents want to find a positive instead.
Advocates living and working around Columbia Avenue near downtown, and on 101 Avenue in east Edmonton, both held minifestivals on the weekend, trying to help developers and city officials see opportunity in the cracked pavement of older neighbourhoods.
They blew up bouncy castles, hosted food trucks, learned to tango in the cold wind, waved flags and took bike tours.
As Edmonton heads into the next four-year budget debate, Mayor Don Iveson has focused on the suburbs, saying new development on the edge of town will cost Edmonton one billion dollars and those developers need to pay more for the infrastructure to serve it.
But festival organizers are asking politicians to focus closer to the centre, on the positives related to vacant and underdeveloped lots in existing neighbourhoods. With a few policy changes and new sidewalks, Edmonton could create higher-density, walkable communities where bus service, libraries, fire stations and recreation centres already exist.
“Some areas are unfairly stigmatized because of their past,” said Chelsey Jersak of Alberta Community Builders, which helped organize a festival with MacEwan University and others in a parking lot on the north side of the university on Columbia Avenue (105 Avenue) Saturday.
The avenue runs through what used to be a light industrial zone along former railroad tracks. It’s an unfriendly barrier between the walk-up apartments of Queen Mary Park and the jobs and nightlife downtown.
But it could be home to thousands more people, putting homes an easy walk from jobs, grocery stores and good transit.
SIDEWALKS AND SENIORS
On 101 Avenue near 67 Street, a coalition of community leagues from Greater Hardisty held a bike rodeo and pet parade, handing out prizes from local businesses on Sunday.
They’re trying to build political will to get wider sidewalks and bike lanes on the avenue, believing that would encourage neighbours to walk to businesses there and get developers to rebuild by constructing multi-storey seniors homes and affordable housing on the edge of the community.
Last June, they convinced council’s urban planning committee to at least consider a budget to revamp the street during the fall debate and, on Sunday, city planners were out talking with residents about potential temporary measures like a downtown-style adaptable bike lane.
“It’s about sharing the expense of infrastructure, reducing urban sprawl,” said neighbourhood organizer Miles Berry. “We have to start looking at that. What are the best opportunities for densification and how can you do that in a mature neighbourhood?”
FLYING THEIR OWN FLAG
On 105 Avenue, artist Andreas Loutas brought bundles of cloth to let residents hoist their own individual flags.
Redevelopment needs funding but it also needs people and community involvement, said Loutas. It needs to happen with the community, creating jobs for local people so it doesn’t push them out, he said, wondering if one of the vacant buildings could be reused for an indoor farm instead of getting torn down for a condo tower.
Lines of walk-up apartments for several blocks north played host to waves of new immigrants, offering cheap rents for families and startup businesses. Adding condos and a plaza could make the area hot and drive out that low-income community, he said. “I don’t want to see it overly gentrified.
“We need things that can employ people in other ways than retail or tech,” he said. “Find a way to use the area, not just exist in it.”
BETTER THAN LRT
Alberta Community Builders helped organize the Columbia Avenue festival. Founder Greg Christenson argued that for both 105 and 101 avenues, these investments make more sense than spending billions on new development at the edge of the city.
Christenson’s company, a seniors-focused developer that no longer owns land nearby, said it’s about complete communities — looking at existing areas and encouraging the right mix of housing types and jobs so people can live their daily lives close to home. That eliminates any long commute, whether by car or transit.
He said 105 Avenue has been slow because the city put an extra levy in place, forcing developers to pay to rebuild the road with no guarantee on timelines. Council needs to see this differently, as a real opportunity, he said.
“If you build these nodes, like around MacEwan, do you really need to build LRT ... need new freeways?” asked Christenson. “Council gets the concept.”