Editorial
The Edmonton Journal
Published: November 14, 2008
It's often the sad mission of this space to lament a perceived lack of local citizen engagement, especially at election time. But then, when a group of Edmontonians get excited about something, we can still make a big noise.
Witness the overflow crowd at City Hall Wednesday which turned up to hear Edmonton planners pitch their draft Municipal Development Plan (MDP) and draft Transportation Master Plan (TMP) at a public forum. hat is very encouraging indeed, since the final documents that will spring from these long-range guidelines will in large measure chart the city's future direction for the next three decades. Enlightened public and political input will be essential in shaping and refining the vision thoughtfully prepared by city planners over the past couple of years.
Those who showed up Wednesday clearly understood the importance of the process and its implications. The TMP, for example, is a serious strategic commitment required by provincial law. The last such document was fashioned nearly a decade ago.
The mind boggles at the local, regional, national and global changes that have unfolded since 1999. Years of assumptions about land use, for example -- to cite a key aspect of the plans -- have bee turned on their head in recent times. Ditto for the ways in which we move around today and are likely to be transported in the coming years. "Sustainability" was a word rarely heard outside academic, professional and political circles in the '90s. Today, it's a survival strategy embraced by clear thinkers of all persuasions.
In important ways, the drafts reflect a good deal of revealed wisdom shared by a large majority of urbanists around the world at this juncture in history. In general, they counsel on the need to mandate increased and refined public transit, denser neighbourhoods featuring a diverse range of services within walking distance, and protection of land for habitat, recreational and agricultural use. As well, they warn against further urban sprawl, along with the road construction and other expensive infrastructure and, potentially, environmental costs associated with creating new districts at the city's extremities.
On a big-picture basis, it's difficult to argue with the spirit of those broad guidelines. Many of the folks who showed up for the public hearing this week were concerned about a potential loss of historic farmland within city limits, especially in Edmonton's northeast corner. Given its rich topsoil and many decades of bountiful service, that's a legitimate worry. Almost everyone now agrees that buying local food products whenever possible makes all kinds of sense on a variety of levels.
On the other hand, farmland, like any land, has a material value, a literal price. Measures that would prevent those who wish to sell what could amount to the equivalent of a pension in some cases should be taken very carefully. Mayor Mandel and others who take a more centrist approach than developers simply bent on "warehousing" property have a point when they fret over losing tax revenues to bordering counties.
And then, much as some refuse to acknowledge it, lots of people in this country -- particularly newcomers to it -- still aspire to suburban life in its fullness, the newer and roomier the better. They are not felons for harbouring these desires, but productive members of a free society pursuing their own dreams, the very sort of life that once included many now opposed to it. For those occupying much of the planet, Alberta remains a very empty place.
That said, it's clear enough that we need to become much more environmentally responsible, that we have pushed the limits to the point that we might not get another chance to make things right.
Do we wish to get to the day when we must break up pavement to grow food crops? Opportunities abound in this city and environs for innovation and redress. True, if we had a proper regional municipal government , these interconnected things would be a lot easier to sort out. But that was not to be our fate.
Reconciling the seeming polarities of opinion surrounding urban land use and transportation policy is a very tall order. But that is precisely what Edmonton council is pledged to do. Good that we are talking about it together, and godspeed (and good luck) to those who must sensibly point our col lective way forward.
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
Balanced plan for urb an sprawl needed now
Scott McKeen, The Edmonton Journal
Published: November 14, 2008
For the sake of some dirt, more than 550 citizens appeared at City Hall.For the sake of some dirt, land developers pleaded with city council. For the sake of some dirt , city councillors revealed a rift in philosophy and a disparity in character.
No, this was not just any other week at City Hall. Nor is the dirt in questions just any other dirt.
City council held a public hearing on two fundamental planning documents on Wedn esday and Thursday. But much of the attention focused on the farms and fields in northeast Edmonton.The land in question has often be en described as Alberta's banana belt. About 3,200 hectares of it feature top-grade soil, and sit under a micro-climate that provi des the most frost-free growing days in the province.
Here's the rub. The city is in a population boom. The northeast sector is undeveloped.
Some at City Hall want to create an industrial park in the area to capture some of the industrial boom filling the t ax coffers of counties.
With it would come residential development, to provide needed homes for workers.
This is Mayor Stephen Mandel's vision. It is of a thriving northeast with light industry, environmentally friendly neighbourhoods, a djoining market gardens and LRT linking it together.
Yet 550 people showed up at City Hall to support a different vision -- a future where more and more of Edmonton's food is raised locally on those lands.
Like the American reliance on foreign oil, Edmonton is almost completely reliant on foreign food. Shipping produce from faraway lands pollutes the air, consumes vast amounts of energy and puts inferior, less-nutritious food in our supermarkets. If oil prices skyrocket, so will food prices. Shortages are also possible, given the new realiti s in the market and the distance from field to fork.
So the 550 came, not in protest, but in a polite and yet passionate demonstration of hope and concern for a future where our ties to the land are strengthened.
Newly elected NDP MP Linda Duncan came to remind council of numer ous hearings she attended that considered, yet failed to protect the valuable farm land.Yet Coun. Ed Gibbons, in what can be described as not his finest hour, called Duncan on it, saying he grew up in the area, represents the area and never saw her face around before.
"I re ally challenge the fact of what you said you did. I just won't accept it," said Gibbons, councillor for the northeast ward. "Have you ever com e and asked me what I plan for the ward?"
Fortunately, the planning of Edmonton's northeast sector is not left to one man nor two. Gibbons' war d mate, Coun. Tony Caterina, also bristled at the idea of protecting the area solely for farming. While several councillors expressed support fo r the idea of protecting the land from development, Mandel was clearly frustrated and wondered aloud about property rights. Do farmers not have the right to sell their land to developers for a profit? Yet his argument ignored the fact that city council routinely establishes zoning rules for pa cels of land. A proponent might want zoning to allow a highrise development on a plot of land. But council doesn't have to give it.
Thus, the city bligated to make owners of farmland rich, though that's certainly been the historic trend in Edmonton, North American's all-star of urban sprawl.
Yet I understand Mandel's frustration, as well as that of Caterina and Gibbons. The 550 citizens want Edmonton to protect far mland within its borders. Yet what about neighbouring counties, which have become rapacious land developers in the last decade? Counties no longer advocate for farmland. Not when there's tax money to be gleaned by developing them into acreages and industrial parks.Edmonton is the engine of growth in this region. Yet counties like Strathcona and Leduc get fat off refinery row and the Nisku Industrial Park.
S till, council cannot let regional disparity drive its thinking on this issue. Extensive studies must be done on the northeast area's poten tial for future food production. Perhaps a balance can be struck to allow for some industry, some residential development, while protectin g the most precious land for agriculture.
There is an onus, too, on the Greater Edmonton Alliance, the community networking agency that brought out the 550 to City Hall this week. To be fair, it must lobby regional municipalities on agricultural protection, too.And Edmonto nians who feel a sense of romantic nostalgia about family farms and farmers markets, need to accept the alternative to sprawl -- some hig -density, in-fill development in their neighbourhoods.
If Edmonton is to protect its banana belt, it must be prepared to grow upward inste ad of outward.
If we don't get our act together, Edmonton could continue to boom, but find itself dirt poor.
e-mail Scott McKeen @ The Edmonton Journal
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
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Edmonton Journal
< b>In planners' vision, expanded LRT dethrones cars
Gordon Kent and Hanneke Brooymans, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Nov 13, 2008
ED ONTON - Almost 600 people packed City Hall on Wednesday as planners laid out a vision of Edmonton 30 years into the future, in which LRT lines extend throughout a denser, walkable city where cars are no longer king.
The transportation master plan and the municipal devel opment plan are intended to provide long-range guidelines for a city expected to be home to as many as 1.2 million people by 2040. The plans outline how land should be used and the ways people should move around. The city's current population is about 770,000.
They call for development around LRT and bus centres to encourage public transit, denser neighbourhoods designed to encourage wa lking and local shopping, protection for a network of nature areas, and doing less road construction if it's only aimed at speeding up commuter traffic.
"We can't build our way out of congestion, nor can we afford to do so," city transportation engineer Rhon da Toohey said.
"If we build more and bigger roads, that causes congestion to spread, compounding the problem."
While she called the plans "realistic," many of the dozens of speakers at the public hearing had reservations, particularly about efforts to p rotect remaining agricultural land.
Retired seed potato grower Jim Visser, founder of the farmland preservation group Topsoil, s aid the city's northeast contains 3,200 hectares of prime land that should be saved for raising crops.
"Move this area forward .. . to a cornerstone of a local food strategy," he said.
Castledowns resident Sam Gunsch appeared with three jars of pickles, incl uding one from a local farmers' market and one from India that he bought in a local supermarket.
Long-distance transportation of food products uses huge amounts of oil and isn't environmentally sound, he said.
"We need to support our local economy, our loca l agriculture. Once we pave it over, it's gone."
But representatives of developers urged that planning for the eventual use of land in northeast and extreme southwest get underway to ensure the property can be used when needed.
"It's just a way of warehousing the lands until we have time to address them," lawyer Jim Murphy said.
Monique Nutter, of the Greater Edmonton Alliance, which i s a coalition of community groups and churches that, among other things, wants to protect farmland, was not surprised by the turnout.
Mothers and fathers sat with their children in their laps as hundreds of people first filled council chambers, then flowed into two additional rooms on the main floor of City Hall. Dozens who stood at the back watched a remote video feed from council chambers .
Nutter said she hopes council will view the turnout as a sign that people are willing to shoulder some of the responsibility when it comes to making decisions.
Alliance member Trudy Smith said she knows farmland can be protected. Her father owns an orchard near Penticton, B.C., and a land freeze prevents him from selling it for anything other than agricu tural purposes, she said.
"It's always been a concern of mine that all the farmland is being gobbled up and thro wn away."
There were also differences on how people should get around Edmonton. Zoe Todd of the People's Pedal bicyc le sharing society commended suggestions to improve the cycling network, saying many riders feel unsafe on the streets.
But Pat Adams of the Canadian Home Builders' Association, who generally supported the two documents, said for a winter city, there' s too little attention paid to roads.
"The road system can't be ignored in the transportation master plan. It has a bias toward bui lding a large, expensive light-rail system."
Councillors also had reservations. Coun. Tony Caterina called the documents "social en gineering" and "pie in the sky" that don't deal with costs, while Mayor Stephen Mandel said the city needs industrial projects in areas such as the northeast to provide tax money.
He doubts the city can grow enough food to feed itself.
Although he supports denser de velopment and encourages less driving, it can be hard to change people's habits, he said, adding that suburbs remain a popular place t o live.
"If we don't supply the kind of housing people want, they will just go out there (to surrounding counties) and use our roads and use our transit anyway."
The two plans will probably be amended and discussed at further public hearings before a final decision on whether to adopt them is made next spring.
e-mail Gordon Kent @ The Edmonton Journal and e-mai l Hanneke Brooymans @ The Edmonton Journal
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
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Edmonton Journal
Todd Babiak, The Edmonton Jour nal
Published: Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The process that led to the City of Edmonton Vision for 2040, which was released las t spring, wisely included the imagination of schoolchildren. A common theme in their collected dreams, largely missing from the adult co ntributions, was the future of food production.
Some of the little Edmontonians envisioned the world's biggest greenhouse in our riv er valley. One futurist, Tina Sang, wrote, "In 2040, instead of crops there will be buildings full of fruits and vegetables."
Food p roduction, along with the good-spirited buckin' and rasslin' of food, were on our minds last week as we joined our rural neighbours in c elebrating Farmfair International and the Canadian Finals Rodeo.
While many of us are frightened about the credit crisis, lower comm odity prices and what they might mean for the Alberta economy, the global food riots and local diesel rationing that came with oil at $ 150 a barrel offered more ghastly images of the future. Scenarios like peak oil, once a concern for the intellectual fringes of society, are now discussed in city council committees. Food security is a part of the Municipal Development Plan. In a northern climate, affordab le food currently depends on imports, which currently depend on cheap fuel; despite a recent drop in oil prices, most economists see it as a short respite, not the new normal.
In this context, city council will hold public hearings on Wednesday at 7 p.m. to discuss the future of Edmonton's northeast agricultural lands, some of the most fertile in the province. Some councillors, including Lin da Sloan, support the coalition of local-food advocates eager to retain the area as farmland. Mayor Stephen Mandel has said he supports mixed-use zoning, which would blend environmentally friendly residential development and light industrial projects w ith agriculture. Others will push for whatever gets us the most tax revenue.
"This is one of those things where you don't get a second chance," says Ron Berezan, who operates a busy company called The Urban Farmer that offers consulting, design and c onstruction, and workshop services to Edmontonians who want to grow their own food.
"We have a model of a local food industry right within our city limits. It's hard to underestimate, economically and from the point of view of health. Food loses its nutrien t quality the longer it travels. We don't know the situation in which it was grown, if we're importing. There are environmental imp acts, of course. And we may be in a situation where global food networks are interrupted. My grandparents ate locally and ate well . Today, even if everyone in Edmonton wanted to eat locally, we couldn't do it. We've given up enough land."
Governments and ci tizens all over the world are grappling with this balance. Populations are rising, especially in urban centres, and arable soil is like any other natural resource. When it's used up, it's used up. At present, over 80 per cent of the world's farmlan d is in use.The children of Edmonton are plugged into a very contemporary anxiety and some rather ingenious potential solutions.
A scientist at Columbia University in New York, Dickson Despommier, leads The Vertical Farm Project: Agriculture for the 21st Century and Beyond (website), which proposes exactly what Tina Sang suggests.
"Vertical farms, many storeys high," writes Despommier, "will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming."
Vertical farms, in highrises equipped with next-generation solar panels and wind turbines, would have no need for fertilizer s or herbicides. Black water would be recycled within the system. In a controlled climate, luck wouldn't be necessary.
A Dutch architecture and urban design firm, MVRDV (website), has published a book and create d a three-dimensional analysis of the city of the future, complete with vertical farms, called Metacity Datatown. They conclude that the world could sustain almost 400 "datatowns," which could support up to 88 billion people.
Until we start building v ertical farms, we're stuck with horizontal technologies. There are plenty of brownfields in Edmonton -- not to mention a municip al airport -- to clean up and develop, negating any pressing need to cover the best soil in Alberta with warehouses and yet mor e 2,100 square-foot mansions.
e-mail Todd Babiak @ The Edmonton Journal
© The Edmonton Journal 2008
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Edmonton Journal