Liane Faulder's July 23 feature on urban intensification and the proposed redevelopment of the Strathearn apartments ("Clash of visions," Sunday Reader), plus the Aug. 11 editorial on residential infill ("Winning support for infill housing"), were informative and an excellent introduction to a public discussion on city planning. 

In the Vancouver example cited in Faulder's article, intensification projects were directed downtown for 30 years before the city turned to mature, low-density neighbourhoods. 

The Vancouver planning director interviewed cautioned Edmonton about "plopping down very tall buildings in a very modest-scale circumstance. "It's common sense -- neighbourhoods, like cities, intensify gradually over time.

Unfortunately for Edmonton residents, redevelopment in mature areas is developer-driven.

There is no formal process to create neighbourhood-level plans that build on the vision of local residents -- unlike the Vancouver model.

Edmonton city council should be providing leadership, as was done in Vancouver.

Glenora and Grovenor community leagues are currently attempting to collaborate with a developer who is considering a major project, including highrise buildings, on a small one- hectare site adjacent to single-family homes.

Both communities support the city's Smart Choices residential infill strategy for mature neighbourhoods, which recommends small-scale and medium-density residential redevelopment.

Based on this strategy, we have proposed an alternative townhouse concept appropriate for this small site and similar to the nearby MacKinnon Estates featured in The Journal last month.

As it now stands in our city, the formal community consultation process allows residents an opportunity only to react to development proposals (which are never fully revealed in early "test-the-water" meetings) and to negotiate superficial changes.

Minor changes are then presented to council as addressing community concerns.

Your recent editorial "Winning support for infill housing" (Aug. 11) raised several important points that the Strathearn Redevelopment Team has not only endorsed but implemented.

We have been a part of the Strathearn community since the 1950s, providing quality rental accommodation.

Our vision is to continue serving the community in a new era by providing a range of quality housing alternatives, integrated into an interconnected urban village concept.

Our commitment prompted us to implement a pre-application community consultation program. We have met with the Strathearn Community League, held two community open houses and established a multi-stakeholder advisory committee. The advisory committee has provided valuable input through a design workshop and monthly meetings. Three subcommittees are reviewing issues and options relating to traffic, density and shading and parks and open space issues. 

We commit to continue working with the community to find mutually agreeable solutions to issues raised. This has already resulted in plans for enhanced green space, wider boulevards, open park space and introduction of a grid system of streets that will both divert traffic and better integrate the proposed development into the surrounding community.

We will continue to work with the community until we have a solution that meets the housing market needs, addresses local resident and tenant concerns and offers a fair business case.

Change is never easy. The suburbs of the 1950s are now the central communities of 2006. If we are to keep our city affordable, we all need to work together constructively. The alternative is a city that sprawls for miles, costs more to operate and offers a decreased quality of life.

Stephen Vineberg, president,
Rockwell Investments, Montreal

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Re: "Developer works with community," by Stephen Vineberg, Letters, Aug. 23.

As Mr. Vineberg notes, change is never easy, but being a good neighbour makes the transition much smoother. Few people are opposed to development, since if it were not for development we would not have Strathearn community to live in. However, the currently proposed ultra-high density multi-tower plan will completely change our community and that's not what good neighbours do.

Marcel Chichak,
Edmonton

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Keith Gerein The Edmonton Journal

Thursday, October 05, 2006

EDMONTON - It features more green space and fewer high-rise towers, yet the revised plan for a controversial housing development in Strathearn is still far off the mark, community residents say.

"They have substantially changed nothing," said Greg Plouffe of the Strathearn Community League. "People who know and love this community know we are not opposed to redevelopment, but it has to be appropriate development."

Plouffe was among dozens of residents who filed into the local school Wednesday evening to see new plans for the 8.4-hectare Strathearn Heights Apartments site southeast of downtown.

Developers are proposing to knock down the current aging, low-rise structures and replace them with a denser "urban village," featuring a mix of townhouses, medium-rise apartments, high-rises and retail space.

Their first plan unveiled in the spring proposed as many as six towers ranging from 10 to 25 storeys (sic), and a maximum of 2,000 units on the site, up substantially from the current 504 units.

Residents balked at those numbers, prompting developers to come back with the new plan, features four towers ranging in height from 19 to 23 storeys and a maximum 1,750 units.

More parkland has also been incorporated, bringing the total green space to about 1.6 hectares.

"People say we haven't been listening to the community. Well, we have been listening," said David Kent, co-owner of the apartments. 

Kent said the proposed thin towers will not have as much of a visual impact as people believe, nor will they create big shadows on residents' properties. 

"Any time you introduce height, it's a lightning rod for controversy," he said.

Reducing the density much below 1,750 units could make the project uneconomical, Kent said.

He said developers recently completed a study that shows Strathearn's roads can handle the increased traffic.

But many residents at Wednesday's open house were not convinced, suggesting a development of 1,000 units would fit better in the community.

"Forcing us to be subjected to these towers doesn't make sense. It will change the character and distinctiveness of this community," said Daryl Jones, who has lived in Strathearn for six years.

New subdivisions don't have high-rise buildings, so why should inner-city communities get them, he said.

"The proposed towers are ugly in this kind of neighbourhood, and they will be on the landscape for 50 years," said France Laurin, another resident.

Plouffe said the community league recently completed a survey of Strathearn residents. Just over half the households responded, and only 11 per cent said they support the proposal, he said.

Kent questioned the survey's accuracy. He said many residents have told him they like the redevelopment plan, but are reluctant to speak up publicly. 

City council will ultimately decide whether to proceed with the project, though a vote is several months away.

The proposal is being looked at as a test case of the city's stated desire to promote infill projects in older communities.

If eventually approved, the development could take between five and eight years to be completed, Kent said.

kgerein@thejournal.canwest.com

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We built this city

But we didn't wanna. Residents of Edmonton's Strathearn neighbourhood are fighting plans for an "urban village" designed to increase population in the area. The original plan consisted of six highrise apartment towers, as well as infill townhouses and retail space. After residents complained, the project was scaled back to four towers, and a mixture of townhouses and retail. But some people are still unhappy.

But hey: it's a fact of urban life. Old neighbourhoods densify as the city grows. If we insist on the same low-density, suburban development we've been guilty of promulgating for so long now, Edmonton will never be a city on par with the greats... and isn't that what we all want?

A. Nonny Moose

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THINK TWICE ON REBUILDING

AS A RESIDENT OF STRATHEARN, I appreciate the mention of the Strat­hearn Apartments redevelopment. However, more space or perhaps more thought should have gone into the short piece.

19 to 23 story towers are not con­sistent with my definition of urban village. This type of development is completely out of scale with the rest of the neighbourhood. Density for density's sake will not make Edmon­ton a great city. Some say design is much more important and I agree. Judging from the open house boards, the developer has spent a considerable amount of time on design, but clothes won't hide the flab. High rise apartments should be located on arterials, not on local roads and near collectors in the heart of Strathearn.

Strathearn is part of Edmonton 's inner suburbs developed in the 1950s. It benefits from its proximity to downtown and is ready to be redeveloped.

However, if the density of the entire city was increased three and a half times, as is proposed for the Strathearn Apartments, the density of Edmonton would be virtually the same as Toronto . Is that the Edmonton we want?

 Brian McCosh

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Editorial Cartoon for Halloween

Susan Ruttan, The Edmonton Journal
Published: Monday, December 04, 2006

EDMONTON - Residents near the corner of 142nd Street and Stony Plain Road have a new weapon in their fight against five condo towers proposed for the corner.

The area has been selected as the city's first-ever Smart Choices project. A planning consultant hired by the city began work last week to draft a Smart Choices plan to manage growth in the Grovenor-Glenora area.

"We're very excited," Cassandra Haraba, president of the Grovenor Community League, said of the project.

The community is under intense pressure from developers, she said, and sees the Smart Choices project as a way of having a say in what happens.

Local developer Alex Davidoff wants to rezone four acres in the northeast corner of the intersection to build five condo towers, with heights from 10 to 18 storeys. 

The Grovenor and Glenora communities fiercely oppose the development.

One early outcome of the new project may be to ask council for a six-month freeze on development in the area until a plan is in place, said Greg Barker, the city's Smart Choices co-ordinator.

Smart Choices is a policy adopted by city council two years ago to revitalize older neighbourhoods with infill housing and new businesses. The ultimate goal, said Barker, is a city-wide plan to create developments that fit well with existing communities and encourage pedestrian traffic.

The Grovenor-Glenora area has been selected as an early project, he said, because of the development pressures there.

"We should have started this two years ago, unfortunately, but we didn't have the resources," Barker said.

The consultant has a March 15 deadline to complete the first phase of the project, talking to all sides about the disputed land and drafting an action plan.

The Glenora and Grovenor community leagues want no new housing bigger than townhouses or low-rise apartment blocks. Grovenor wants housing for young families who will provide students for Grovenor elementary school, which is under threat of closure.

"Edmonton is still highrise averse," said Armin Preiksaitis, development consultant for the Davidoff project.

"They feel the only places there should be highrises are in the downtown and Oliver, and to a certain extent, Garneau. But those areas are getting built out."

The Davidoff proposal is one of several multi-tower proposals in Edmonton, including a four-tower proposal in Strathearn and the six-tower North Edge project downtown.

Preiksaitis calls the Davidoff project "the Vancouver tall, slim model," one that will give tower residents a view of the river valley.

Vancouver's west end is a sea of highrise towers. Prof. David Gordon, an urban planning expert from Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., said the Vancouver idea was to build tall, slim towers with enough room between buildings that every apartment dweller got a view of the mountains and the ocean.

Such towers are now a standard product with developers, said Gordon. What cities need to do, he said, is set guidelines that require developers to think in new ways.

"You can get a very high density development without necessarily a highrise building," he said. A six-storey apartment block, or even narrow row houses, can do the job, he said.

Prof. Bev Sandalack, head of the urban design program at the University of Calgary, said it's easier for developers to assemble one site and then put a group of towers on it than to do one building at a time. And for economic reasons, developers will always seek the highest density they can, she said.

Bill Eadie, a spokesman for the Glenora community, said developers are scrambling to get projects approved before a Smart Choices plan brings in rules about new projects in older neighbourhoods.

Coun. Michael Phair, who represents the Glenora-Grovenor area, likes the design of the project but thinks it would suit the downtown area better.

"Many neighbourhoods face the same situation. The message would have to ring loud and clear to all the councillors." Strathearn's battle against a big development with four highrise towers is heating up, with three public meetings on the proposal scheduled for the next week.

The first one, a city open house on the project, is tonight. The giant Strathearn Heights Village project at 87th Street and 95th Avenue could then go to a council public hearing on Sept. 5, just before councillors head into serious campaigning for the Oct. 15 election.

Tchida and other Strathearn activists hope to convince councillors to delay the project, so the community can create its own redevelopment plan for the land before the project is approved.

They're also courting aspiring Ward 4 candidates for council, such as Ben Henderson. Henderson agrees that the proposed complex is too big for the area."Yes, we need to have new development in older neighbourhoods, but we need to do it in a way that keeps neighbourhoods healthy," he said.

"Change is inevitable and we accept it," said Tchida, but the scale of the project -- housing units would more than triple on the site, to 1,750 -- is too much.

The project would create an "urban village" on a nine-hectare parcel of land, with townhouses, medium-rise apartment blocks and four highrise towers. The tallest tower would be 23 storeys. The property owners are the Nearctic Group of Edmonton and Rockwell Investments of Montreal.

Ward 4 councillor Jane Batty, who is seeking re-election, likes many aspects of the project, but agrees the towers are a bit high. "I always prefer that communities and developers reach some sort of a compromise together," Batty said.

However, she acknowledges that's not likely to happen in Strathearn, so council may have to decide the issue. Another Ward 4 fight is the proposed five-tower development on Stony Plain Road at 142nd Street. The Glenora and Grovenor communities are hoping the election will stall approval of the project, which is also heading toward a council public hearing this fall. 

"We're opposed 100 per cent" to the highrise towers, said Heather Klimchuk of the Glenora Community League. A recently formed alliance of older neighbourhoods called the Mature Neighbourhood Action Group has called for a six-month delay in approval of projects like those in Strathearn and Glenora.

That would allow neighbourhoods to prepare their own plans for how redevelopment should happen. The Strathearn Community League is holding a public meeting on July 5 to start creating a neighbourhood redevelopment plan for the area. Finishing the plan will take months, Tchida said.

Stefan Fekner, a city planner handling the project, warns that such a plan isn't likely to be ready in time to affect the Strathearn project. The developer has a right to have the project proceed to a public hearing of council, he said.

sruttan@thejournal.canwest.com

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The Strathearn Heights project doesn't fit those draft principles. Nor, of course, is it bound by them, because the city hasn't yet approved such rules. But still, they're a reminder to the developers and city councillors that the location of the Strathearn project isn't ideal. So, compromise is needed. Let's shave a few storeys off the towers and get on with building Strathearn Heights Village.

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Michelle Collins, The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - Residents opposed to four apartment towers slated for Strathearn spoke out against the development at a meeting Wednesday evening.

More than 150 people turned out for a public meeting with city planners and developer Strathearn Heights.

Questions about the height of the towers, the density of the proposed urban village and the increase in traffic appeared to be the biggest concerns.

Many in the crowd expressed frustration that information has been slow in coming and said the development is being rushed.

John Bohaychuk raised his hand several times at the meeting and said he'd like the towers to be eight storeys high, rather than the proposed 23 storeys. "We aren't opposed to the redevelopment," Bohaychuk said. "It's just the height and density and congestion."

City planners predict traffic flows will triple along 85th Street and double along 98th Avenue.

The current development proposal includes 1,750 housing units. Of those, five per cent would be set aside for affordable housing. There will also be parks, a retail strip and underground and street parking.

Despite some vocal opposition in the crowd, many at the meeting say they're ready for the change. "I love it," Jenny McAlister said. She wants to see the community, built as a 1950s-era suburb, reflect its proximity to downtown. "I like that there's going to be retail, there's really nowhere to go for coffee." McAlister and her husband Marshall say some of the concerns being raised are fair and change is always difficult. But they think the owners of Strathearn Heights are trustworthy.

Rob Harper is looking forward to the towers, and said the adversarial tone taken by some who oppose the development makes him feel uneasy. "I think it sounds really exciting, I like the whole concept of the urban village," Harper said. He also hopes that having retail in the area will encourage people to use their cars less often.

The development requires a bylaw rezoning as well as approval from city council before it can move forward. The plan is to go before a city council committee next week.

mcollins@thejournal.canwest.com

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Anna Mehler Paperny, The Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON - The old Charles Camsell Hospital site may finally be slated for redevelopment after 11 years sitting vacant. Inglewood residents rejected architect Gene Dub's last proposal for the site in 2005.

Reaction to his latest plans providing for lower-density housing has been positive, Dub says. He gave residents a look during a meeting last week. "Out of the 20-odd people who spoke, I would say three might have been against," he said. "People at the earlier (2005) meeting were very much concerned, whereas I think that at this meeting the feedback we got after the meeting ... was generally very positive."

Dub and four partners bought the Camsell site for $3.6 million in 2004. He first proposed putting 862 housing units there. He withdrew the scheme after residents objected that there would be too many people living there. His current proposal is for 594 housing units comprised of condominiums, affordable housing, single-family dwellings and townhouses.

The highrises won't be higher than the original eight-storey hospital. The site will be surrounded by single-family housing to act as a buffer between the highrises and the rest of the neighbourhood.

"People were concerned that the project is in an area that has a lot of single-family dwellings, and they felt there was a visual conflict between the single-family and the higher density on this site," he said. "This reduces that conflict in that ... the entire site has a ring of single-family around it so that you are always looking at single-family dwellings."

Development would include a 0.4-hectare park in the site's northeast corner and a maximum of 450 square metres of retail space.

Five per cent of the units are to be affordable housing, the target amount under the city's Cornerstone housing program. The policy provides for non-profit agencies to buy or manage such units, with city funding.

Dub said he's looking into designing the site in compliance with an environmental-design rating system. But that may be too expensive, given the site's reduced density and the number of affordable housing units. The green initiatives Dub said he wants to explore include solar panels, grass roofs, storm water collection and a geothermal heating system.

Paul Adams, president of the Inglewood Community League, said there are some remaining concerns over traffic and services but most residents approve of the plans. "The major concerns were the condition of the site, how long it's taking to turn it into something else, and it's a situation where our community is just wanting some thing to be done and to get on with it quickly."

Adams said residents want to ensure the hospital building itself is developed as soon as possible. "The last thing we want is the hospital half finished and the whole site being in a state of almost done." He has been concerned that the empty building, which caught fire during demolition work last year, is a safety hazard and a draw for vagrants. A provision in the zoning application will stipulate construction on the hospital building be given priority.

Dub said he plans to demolish the original building's interior along with all the surrounding buildings, but leave the hospital's structure in place. "It'll be gutted down to its basic structure," Dub said.

Coun. Kim Krushell said she likes the design overall, but is concerned about delays in construction on the old hospital.

Dub said he hopes to begin construction next spring.

apaperny@thejournal.canwest.com