A STUDY IN MISMANAGEMENT
City of Edmonton should off-load Blatchford instead of raising taxes
There’s a strong connection between the city auditor’s report, reviewed by council’s audit committee Monday, and the administration’s request for an 8.7 per cent increase to property taxes this year.
If there was an overarching theme in the auditor’s review it was that, among the city offices examined — the Blatchford development and the city environmental commissariat, in particular — there is no way of determining whether many city services are meeting their goals.
Administration has inadequate data over where money is being spent and what for, and no good methods for measuring outcomes. Are they reaching whatever targets city council has set for them, or even targets they set for themselves? It’s impossible to tell.
What has that got to do with the administration’s request last week for an 8.7 per cent robbery from city taxpayers? Everything.
Why should any Edmontonian agree to pay a penny more in property tax when the city cannot answer whether the money currently being extracted from homeowners and small businesses is being put to good use?
Take that never-ending White Elephant, the Blatchford development, at the old city centre airport.
On Monday, Mayor Amarjeet Sohi (long a supporter of this fanciful eco-dream), asked Tom Lumsden, the city’s development director for Blatchford, how many houses are occupied there now compared to two-and-a-half years ago?
Remember, at Blatchford, the city is acting as its own developer.
According to Lumsden, 20 Blatchford homes were occupied 30 months ago. Today, the total is 84. That’s just over two new homes a month.
Figures provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) show that over the same period, private developers in our city averaged nearly 1,200 new homes a month.
If I’ve carried my digits correctly and moved the decimal point like I should have, that’s a 60,000 per cent difference.
That’s the level of city incompetence at Blatchford: It’s 60,000 per cent less effective than private housing developers.
The mayor, who has frequently defended this net-zero, car-hostile neighbourhood, said he is concerned about the slow pace of building there and wants more data that will show how the city can better promote Blatchford.
Sohi is sure people will want to buy homes at the windswept, open field if they can just be told how magical it is.
It’s a neighbourhood that is kilometres from most services, which puts up impediments to car ownership (yet has no easy access to LRT) and where homes cost above the city average. Oh, yeah, I’m sure there would be a land rush, with the right promotion.
(You watch, the next harebrained city idea will be subsidies for new buyers.)
Blatchford is the EV of home development. Few people want them or can afford them, but “progressive” politicians are obsessed with the glory of such “sustainable” housing.
Here’s all the data the mayor should need. The city as already spent more than $200 million on Blatchford. By this time there were supposed to be nearly 3,000 homes built. There are 84, not quite three per cent of projections.
If you owned a small business and sales were only three per cent of forecasts, there would already be a “Space for Lease” sign in your front window.
Edmonton’s population grew by more than 55,000 last year. If there was a strong market for Blatchford’s overpriced environmental housing, buyers would be lining up.
It’s obvious the city should sell off the development and cut taxpayers’ enormous losses.
But they won’t do that. Too many on council and in administration believe too fervently in this “green” city of tomorrow.
That’s the connection to the 8.7 per cent tax increase. If councillors can’t say “Sell” on Blatchford, they don’t deserve another dime of taxpayers’ hard-earned money.