Speaking Municipally

Mack Male: When did you last mow the lawn? This week we learned that Edmonton is building less parking than infill housing. I fail to see the problem.
Stephanie Swensrude: Plus, we'll look at some election news and the city's new mowing map.
Mack Male: Hi, I'm Mack.
Stephanie Swensrude: I'm Stephanie.
Mack Male: And we're...
Both: Speaking Municipally.
Mack Male: Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Episode 318. And welcome back to the show, Stephanie.
Stephanie Swensrude: Hello. As always, it's good to be back, and I'm gonna be back for a while. I'm so excited.
Mack Male: I'm very glad to have you. in case you missed it- ... a couple of episodes ago, Troy and I had a conversation about election time and election season and all the craziness that is happening, and Troy has decided, or we have mutually decided, that Troy will take a step back from the podcast for the duration of the election. And that means you get to be the co-host- ... Stephanie. maybe, maybe we'll have you be the lead co-host some weeks. I don't know.
Stephanie Swensrude: Ooh, okay. I'll get to say, I'll get to say it first. Ooh, I'm so excited.
Mack Male: That's great.
Stephanie Swensrude: yeah, I've been at Taproot for about two years or s- so almost, and, or I started talking about working at Taproot with you and Karen about two years ago, and one of the things that I loved so much about Taproot was Speaking Municipally. And I've said since the beginning that my plan has been to overthrow Troy- ... and it's just going perfectly well. You know?
Mack Male: It's all coming to fruition, yeah.
Stephanie Swensrude: It's all, my master plan is working out perfectly. So Troy, your days are numbered. Is he still editing it? 'Cause like he's gonna be listening to this and I don't know, may not-
Mack Male: He is not editing it. He'll listen to the final cut, so-
Stephanie Swensrude: Okay, Troy, watch out.
Mack Male: ... you gotta be careful. You'll, he'll make a TikTok about you or something.
Stephanie Swensrude: Oh, probably.
Mack Male: All right. Well, you're back on the show. We got lots to talk about, but first I'm gonna put you to work.
Stephanie Swensrude: Okay. this episode is brought to you by the Alberta Motor Association, which can help you with more than just towing your vehicle. You can get three months free on an AMA Community Membership that is less than $50 a year. An AMA Community Membership can save you up to $870 a year on things you're already buying, like groceries and takeout. I'm definitely buying takeout a lot these days. AMA has partnered with brands like Uber, PetSmart, Winners, Sobeys, and Sephora, so you can save at all of those places, and plus you can save on AMA services like insurance, travel, and registries. So if you're interested, you can get three months free on a community membership today by visiting ama.ab.ca/threefree. So the three is spelled out, so that's ama.ab.ca/threefree.
Mack Male: There we go. Nicely done.
Stephanie Swensrude: I don't know if I did that okay.
Mack Male: Nicely done. All right. Thank you, Stephanie. first thing I wanted to ask you about was a story that you wrote for Taproot. So the last couple of weeks we've been talking more about Taproot and about this podcast than about the news. But Taproot has continued obviously publishing news every single day, and you did a story a little while ago about St. Albert and about the St. Albert downtown and about housing. And there was something that really stood out to me at the end of that article, but maybe first of all just give us the gist of the, of the news here.
Stephanie Swensrude: So this, article actually came out of, I did a field trip industry event with Build Edmonton, so that's when they get a bunch of people together, mostly real estate industry development, but also some journalists. I go to quite a few of them and there's sometimes other journalists there, and they kind of like show off interesting things in the development real estate world. And so this one was, we toured the downtowns of St. Albert and Stony Plain, which were, I'd been to St. Albert's downtown, but never Stony Plain, and Stony Plain is delightful, if you've never been there. So, one of the interesting things that I heard on this tour that Mayor Cathy Heron said kind of like off the cuff, and I wasn't really able to confirm it in enough of a way to put it in a news story, but basically what she said was, " we're really struggling with residential population downtown, like, you know, like many downtowns across Canada." And she said part of that is because the population is, skews quite elderly. So, you know, not only is there, I wanna say this with as much tact as possible, but you know, that population will eventually move on and leave those units empty, but also, you know, it gets a typical downtown that you think of with nightlife, and it, those, those two things don't exactly match. But they're trying to fix that, and one of the things, they have like a lot of new developments coming. City's Director of Economic Development, Mike Erickson, told us that in five years he wouldn't be surprised if the number of housing units downtown had doubled, so that would be 800 units total over the next five years, and he said that he's expecting to see two or three more new cranes going up in the air, so of course, you know, there'd be two or three major developments up of more than like six to eight stories. And I just thought that was so interesting because obviously downtown Edmonton we've got like, I don't know, what are the tallest buildings like 30, 40 stories? in, in, in St. Albert it's a little different. They're more closer to 20 stories. But, everywhere across the region there are, everyone is trying to densify because people are moving here and not everyone's gonna just move into central Edmonton. People are moving into central St. Albert, central Leduc, central Beaumont. So yeah, I thought that was interesting.
Mack Male: Very interesting, yeah. I would not have known the number. So it's about 400, 450 units that they have in downtown St. Albert currently, so there's about- ... 600 people that live in that downtown. So, quite a bit smaller than obviously Edmonton's downtown, which is closer to 14,000 people or whatever. But the percentage increase that, the economic development, person you talk to is talking about is quite significant, right? If they could double that, you know, they're gonna get to 1,200 or so people maybe living there. that's not insignificant, and that- ... that could change, St. Albert quite a bit. Well, the thing that stood out to me is, you know, sort of the impact of people living there, in theory- ... is that downtown becomes more viable. We talk about that- ... in Edmonton's downtown all the time, right? If we had 30,000 people living here as opposed to 12,000 or 15,000 or whatever it might be, you know, so many more businesses would be viable. Things could stay open. They could be open on the weekends or on evenings because there's more people that are around that are gonna utilize those services. And, Mayor Cathy Heron out in St. Albert said...... something kind of similar to you. So she said that h- she, you know, she got calls about a popular restaurant that closed there called Tryst. And she said, quote, "People were calling me, 'Why did Tryst close down? I loved it there.' And I said, 'When was the last time you were there?' As residents, they have to actually support these little places downtown. They're all important businesses, but instead of going to Boston Pizza, come down here and support your local restaurants," end quote. And I just thought it was so interesting that she basically said the quiet part out loud.
Stephanie Swensrude: She said this during, during the tour, and, like, it wasn't an official media interview, but she said it during the tour, and she kind of had the vibe of like, "I can say whatever I want now because I'm not running for reelection," which is kind of awesome. but yeah, like, I, yeah, I was surprised she said something like that because that's totally the stereotype of, you know, Edmonton and the surrounding area is that, yeah, we'll go and support the Boston Pizza, the Brewhouse, stuff like that, but when it comes to something, like, small and really special, it doesn't, it doesn't get the same support.
Mack Male: Or, or even when these small and special things close, and there's this outpouring of support- ... or people are like, "Oh, I'm so sad to see it go," and it's like, "Well, when was the last time you went?" You know? And if it's not any time recent, then is anyone surprised? So I just thought it was really interesting that she called that out. Well, speaking of housing, so this is a challenge that, as you pointed out, is common across the region. We're growing really fast. We've got a lot of new people. They all need places to live, and so that was why I found this other article from CityNews particularly interesting, and they, they pointed out that there's new data that shows that since 2020, when we removed parking minimum requirements for new developments, so you don't have to build a minimum number of parking spots anymore, that we're now building fewer parking stalls than infill housing units. And this, to me, is kind of like a blinding flash of the obvious. Like, that is the whole idea- ... about removing parking minimums, right? Is that we don't need to have a parking stall for every house that we build. this, to me, suggests that things are working. what's- ... new to you, Stephanie, about this, about this news?
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah. I had the same thought. Like, for a second, I was like, "Is this just a news release from the city celebrating the intended outcome of a policy?" Like, this was the whole point. I don't know. Did people think that if we took away parking minimums that we would have the same amount of parking spots? Like, I don't know, when policies change, there are results that happen in the world. So I, I was the same way where I said, "Yes, this is the entire point of the policy." It's like when, the zoning bylaw renewal went out, and all of a sudden people are saying, "There's so much more new infill." It's like, yeah, that was-
Mack Male: That was the idea.
Stephanie Swensrude: That was the idea.
Mack Male: I mean, I think the article is picking up on that common- ... frustration, maybe, that some people have. Which is that, you know, whenever you see a new development, or the plans for a new development, or something's going to public hearing, invariably, the thing that people are complaining about is, "Oh, there's going to be too many cars and not enough places to park." Right? And so people are always concerned about this increased parking challenge that might come with having fewer parking spots. But the whole idea of removing these parking minimums and allowing these, types of developments to go forward is that you might not need a car, right? You, you live close to transit or a bike lane or other forms of active transportation. Maybe you can choose not to buy a car and not to have a car and to get around in another way. So, I think the article was just sort of... It could have been that news release. But instead, it's sort of like, "Oh, we know people are gonna be outraged about a lack of parking. Let's go with that angle." And maybe that's unfair to the CityNews folks, but that's how it came across a little bit.
Stephanie Swensrude: So the article kind of points out this single family older home that's in between two infill eightplexes. And I'm 99% sure that the person that lives in the house in the middle has been at a couple of these public hearings, like, expressing his displeasure with those two eightplexes. Now, if it is the same house, Grow Together Edmonton pointed out that these two eightplexes are a 650-meter walk from a future Valley Line LRT stop. That's about nine or 10 minutes away. So things are changing in Edmonton. This is one of the... The intended results of a policy change is that when you're close to LRT and transit, then you don't necessarily need to have a car. The tweet says, or the Blue Sky post, I don't know what... Is it a Skeet? I don't know. The Blue Sky post says-
Mack Male: No idea.
Stephanie Swensrude: ... "People claim to support density where it ma- makes sense. Well, where better than within walking distance to transit?" So I went and looked at the council memo that all this information came from, this, and I looked at the actual numbers. So for minor development permits, that would be for four-unit row houses plus four backyard suites, that's how the city classifies it, so for these four-row houses, four backyard suites, approximately 0.82 parking spaces are being delivered per residential unit citywide. So yeah, across the whole city, that's including outside of the Henday, within the Henday, downtown, everything, it's 0.8 parking spaces per unit.
Mack Male: So if we've got four units, we've got three parking spots. So pretty close still- ... to, to one to one.
Stephanie Swensrude: So that's across the whole city, and then in the RS zone, which is commonly used in the redeveloping area within the Henday, it's 0.48 parking spaces per dwelling unit. So it's about one parking spot per two units. So that's for minor stuff, for row houses. Then for major ones, so that's five or more units that aren't in the four-up or, like, four-row house, four backyard suites, approximately 0.89 parking spaces are being provided per dwelling unit citywide, and then in the RS zones, so that's in the devel- redeveloping area, it's approximately 0.28 parking spaces. So across the city, it's nearly one for one, but within the RS zone, on larger projects, it is about one parking unit for every three or four. I don't know if my math is right, but that seems right.
Mack Male: Yeah, for every four, roughly. Yeah. And then in the, in the RS zone, the small scale for smaller dev- minor development permits, it's about half.... two to one is the ratio.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah, so those are the, those are the actual numbers. But again, this is what was the point of the policy. I've spoken to some developers, especially doing infill, and some have told me that they do include some parking, but at the same time, that will take away the amount of housing that they can provide on a lot, and it will therefore increase the cost of the housing, because like if you have a lot and you- you can only put three homes on it, that's more expensive per unit. And the other thing is that there's so many newcomers coming here, like international or from like... Essentially, if they have to take a plane here- ... a lot of them are choosing to not buy a car once they get here because car ownership is so expensive. And these developers, of course, take it with a grain of salt, but they're telling me that these international newcomers are really not going to be relying on cars. So I don't know, that was just an interesting, anecdote I heard from, from some developers.
Mack Male: I mean, it's a long-term shift, right? This idea that we're gonna move away from being completely car dependent, and you need lots of changes and the impacts of those changes to build up over time. This removing the minimum parking requirements is one of those changes, and it does seem like it's having the intended effect, that we can build more housing potentially at lower cost- ... and provide people with options where they don't need to have a car, they don't need the cost of their housing to be slightly higher because they need a parking spot, right? So- And, and the numbers that you pointed out here, you know, roughly across the city, almost every unit of housing has a, a parking stall still. Right? So-
Stephanie Swensrude: Still.
Mack Male: I mean, eventually maybe that'll go down even more. But right now, what the market is providing without requiring them to have a minimum number of parking stalls is still not that far off from where we were before, when you had- ... at least one housing unit, one parking stall per housing unit. So- ... like I said, longer term trend here.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah. It's not like all of a sudden there's one parking spot for a 300-unit tower. Like overwhelmingly we're still almost building one parking stall per housing unit.
Mack Male: Right. Yeah. the other thing I thought was interesting about this article is they did talk to Councilor Erin Rutherford. And she said she plans to introduce a motion to address parking issues in areas with limited transit, proposing new parking conditions and better regulation of on-street parking. So, you know, you don't own the street in front of your house, and it's up to the city to decide what they're gonna do there. So, you know, in some areas, we, we already have a permitting system- ... where you need a permit in order to park on the street. Maybe they'll do some of that in certain places. But the other part about the areas with limited transit, I mean, the solution there obviously is not about the parking, it's about the transit, right? If there's an area that has limited transit right now, and we're seeing parking issues as a result, maybe there's a short term need to do something about the parking, but clearly the right thing to do long term is make sure that area is well served by transit.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah. And that's something that's more in the city's control, whereas meddling with parking minimums, which would be like re-litigating parking minimums, which was changed just five years ago, that would be in, you know, getting in the way of providing housing maybe. That could be a way of, you know, adding back on red tape. 'Cause that was a, one of the big things, one of the big things that they celebrated when they took away the parking minimums is this is reducing red tape and providing open option parking.
Mack Male: Yeah. Or if you decide you're gonna assign bylaw officers to go and regulate the parking and look, you know- ... if people take... All of those things add cost, right? And that's really not solving the problem. It's just, you know, mitigating potentially some of the short term impacts. But we really need, you know, to make sure that those areas are better served by transit. And, you know, when you're building these developments within ten-minute walks of LRT stations, that's really great, but we know the LRT doesn't go everywhere. And so that bus service is really important for, for these other areas, right? Well, hopefully our next council is able to tackle some of those improvements without re-litigating too many of the things that happened. I see here you've written on our documents, Stephanie, that we are 73 days from the election. That's coming up fast.
Stephanie Swensrude: A scary amount. I know. Well, 'cause a few, a few weeks ago, I, I think Ashley Salvador or one of the councilors as re- running for reelection post said, "We're 90 days away from the election." And I'm like, "That's so scary." And now I'm like, "No, that number is way lower now. Every day it gets lower." So, yeah, we're 73 days away. I had a couple of little things. I know that we're trying to move kind of away from the horse race style- ... of reporting, but there are a few things that I wanted to chat about. I went downtown for the first time, in a while, a couple days ago, and I stumbled upon Cartmel's campaign headquarters, and I was shocked to see the slogan outside of his campaign headquarters. It was, "Get SHIT done."
Mack Male: For real?
Stephanie Swensrude: Swearing? Swearing in the municipal election? What? ..
Mack Male: Well, they swear, they swear at council, so why not in the- ... why not on the campaign office?
Stephanie Swensrude: I know. Point of order. you know, it was, it's an interesting slogan for a party who is led by someone who... Like the biggest campaign story, so far of his campaign has been that he could have gone, to council and did this, a vote that would've really made a material difference on something that he's campaigning on, the infill vote. And then he said he went on vacation. So it's like, get what SHIT done?
Mack Male: Right. Yeah. And you're sure this is a real thing? Like this isn't a Troy prank or something like that with the office?
Stephanie Swensrude: Oh, that's a good question. It looks pretty real here. I took a picture of it because I was so, I was so flabbergasted. I'm pretty sure it's real. It's right on, it's right on 103rd Street, by the-
Mack Male: Yeah, it's right on 103rd.
Stephanie Swensrude: ... I guess- ... it's, I guess, here, I'm showing it.
Mack Male: She's showing me the picture. I see it very clearly. Let's get SHIT done. Wow. That's a choice.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah, I know. And, you know, that, that really ties in well with Keith Garine, put out an op-ed in the last few days saying, "There is no front runner in the mayoral election because of Cartmell's missteps in the last few weeks." He said, quote, "But recent weeks have not been kind to Cartmell, or perhaps it's better to say Cartmell has not been kind to himself. He faltered massively during City Council's debates on zoning, first by calling for a partial infill ban, an extreme and probably illegal position, and then missing a key vote on eightplexes because it cut into his pre-arranged vacation time." And now Keith is, kinda arguing that it's kind of an open race. Like, there's not really a front runner right now. It seemed like months ago, it seemed like it was an obvious choice that Cartmell was gonna win. It was gonna be between Sohi and Cartmell, and Cartmell was gonna win, but now everything is all shake- shooken up. And because of this vacation thing, a lot of people said they lost respect for Tim Cartmell. Yeah.
Mack Male: I think it's really, a fair assessment that there is no- ... front runner currently. I would say that it... You know, despite our feelings of, "Oh my god, it's 73 days," it's still quite a bit of time. And I'm sure- ... we're gonna hear a lot more. I mean, it was only very recently that former councilor Michael Walters entered the race- ... for example. y- you know, Taproot's managing editor, Tim Quagengessier, and I were talking about this and kind of got, into a- an agreement, not a disagreement, an agreement that the three maybe front runners, if there's three of them that slightly pull ahead from the pack, that would be Councilors Andrew Knack and Tim Cartmell, and then former councilor Michael Walters. They're pretty similar. Right? I mean, in, in broad strokes, right? They, they have some experience on council. They roughly agree on some of the broad things. They obviously have some differences in, in terms of their approach and how they feel about infill and some of those kinds of things, but they're not that dissimilar. And so- ... maybe some of the work that needs to happen here is for, those councilors, those candidates I should say, to better differentiate themselves from one another. You do have some other really interesting folks in the mayoral race, right? Rahim Jaffer and Tony Catarina, who also used to be a city councilor. but I don't know that people... Maybe this is me projecting. I feel like they, they haven't been in the same box as these three because they have had the more recent experience on council- ... that they've had, right? So, I guess we'll see where they can differentiate themselves over the next little while. In the, in the column, did Garine say anything about, like, what would make for a front runner? You know, like front runner is kinda one of those labels that needs a definition to some degree, right? Like, unless we're talking about a specific poll and we know that those can be flawed or, you know, a, a survey or something like that. Wha- like, what does front runner mean? It's just our perception of how successful the person's gonna be.
Stephanie Swensrude: I just think some of the other candidates have just been a little bit underwhelming. I mean, Michael Walters is super new in the race. Cartmell's obviously been at this for, let's be real, like a few years now - ... running for mayor. and then Knack came into the race in like, what, May? yeah, so Michael Walters hasn't really had a chance to make his, make, you know, make an impression yet. And then Knack, my impression is that he's also not really doing anything to get a lot of media attention. I think he's doing a lot of, like, door knocking and talking to people one on one. But unlike Na- unlike Cartmell who's doing, like, big sweeping motions, ban all infill, Knack is taking things a little bit more grassroots, I think. But that can be bad because then people don't know if, if he doesn't come to your door, each and individual door of every million Edmontonians, you might not even know about him, whereas people will know about Tim Cartmell.
Mack Male: I mean, he also mailed something to the whole city, so, you know- ... there's that as well. And, you know, maybe Councilor Knack has plans for that as well. Well, we, we don't wanna talk about the horse race too much. The only other quick thing to mention about, you know, the problem of horse race coverage, as you noted too, that attendance issue. It's been a bit of a defining thing. Tim Cartmell and his team posted about the fact that his attendance hasn't been that poor. What, 95% or something like that. Which is sort of like a weird thing to talk about when you've missed this really important vote, as you say. And, and I thought it was unfortunate to see that Councilor Knack took the bait and- ... and sort of waded into the debate about attendance 'cause we know he's probably got the best attendance record of any councilor in the last several decades, right? Like, Andrew Knack does not miss council meetings. He's... He always shows up to work. Why he felt the need to comment on that or sort of, like, put his two cents in about his attendance record was a bit mystifying to me.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah, that's an interesting take. I didn't think about that at all. My impression as a reporter is that Andrew Knack will always make time for an interview because, like, he is very used to not running for mayor and- Do you know what I... Do you know what I mean? Like, he's very used to just, like, "Oh yes, Stephanie, you want me to explain X, Y, Z to you? For sure, just give me a call. Here's my phone number. I'll..." And, or for the TV, or, "Come to my house and you can... We'll inter- I'll... You can interview me outside my house." He's just used to being like, "Yeah, yeah, come on over." But yeah, I... That's such an interesting take that he kinda, yeah, got, yeah, waded into the debate, as you say.
Mack Male: I mean, it's not in question that he has amazing attendance and he'll do the work. He'll show up, right? Okay, well, we don't wanna dwell on horse race. We've got some other exciting stuff going on- ... with election. - This week we published a story about weak mayors, strong mayors- ... sort of explaining that. It's an example of an explainer that, the team is doing. So tell- ... us about that and, and what else you guys are working on.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah, so we're... That came out, and we've got a ton more in the pipeline coming to you. So here are some of the topics that you can expect. the... An explainer of the difference between a party and a slate, how fundraising roles have changed, what has this council done on active transportation funding, large infrastructure projects, homelessness. I've got a story coming about shoddy infill construction practices and what can actually be done, and many, many more. And also, I just wanted to quickly plug this. This isn't really about the election, but stay tuned for next week. I'm interviewing a very exciting person that I don't want to reveal yet, but I'm pretty sure many of our listeners here will be very excited about who I'm interviewing. So- That's a little teaser for you.
Mack Male: Ooh, I look forward to that. Okay. Well, I think that's fantastic. Last, week we had Karen on the show- ... and we talked a bit about our election project, and that was really focused more on the candidate survey and the voter matching engine. But of course, alongside all of that work, we've got this great reporting that you and the team are doing to help people understand things better. So, I'm sure we'll be talking about all of those stories in more detail as they come out over the next- ... several weeks. All right. Another thing that, we were both looking at recently came through the TikToks. The City of Edmonton has a mowing map. Tell us about this.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yes. So this is so funny. My little sister, who's 25 years old, sent this to me, if you're listening, Katrina, which I doubt you are, but thank you. but she, sent it to me and asked if I knew about this, and I said no. So Ashley Salvador posted a TikTok about the new City of Edmonton mowing map. We've had the snowplow map for a few years now where you can see, hey, when is my street gonna get plowed, and it shows you, like, where the plows are in the city. Now we have a mowing map, so it shows what turf areas there are, if they're maintained by the city, when it was last mowed, and what the schedule it is for it to get mowed. And I think that's, I think that's pretty cool. some of the comments were saying stuff like, "Why is the city paying money for this?" But I think if you've ever spent time in a community Facebook group, almost all of the posts are, in the summer, are like, "When is the city going to come mow this median? I'm gonna take my m- lawnmower out to the soccer field and mow it myself." So I think this would be very helpful if, if people know about it and they can say, "Okay, well, I don't have to worry because it's allegedly coming. The mowers are coming in however many days." So, after I found this, I looked up my local, my local park. I went to the park on a Friday, and the, there was patches of the grass and weeds that were up to my, like, knees or my thighs , and it said they had, it had been mowed on the Tuesday, so, like, two or three days before. So I kind of doubt the accuracy of the map, but also- ... like I'm not sure 'cause this, this particular park was under construction, so maybe, I don't know what's, what's going on. But anyways, I think it's, I think it's a, a good thing. What are, what are your thoughts on the mowing map, Mack?
Mack Male: I mean, in general I love these kinds of things. I think anything we can do to provide people with greater confidence in the work that administration is doing and where their tax dollars are going, I think that's a good thing. So having this map I think is really valuable. I just opened it up, as you're talking, to look at my local park, so Alex Decoteau Park on 105th and 102nd, and it says nothing. There's no date for last cut and no days since last cut. So-
Stephanie Swensrude: Sick. Great.
Mack Male: ... I'm not sure about that. but most of the things when I was poking around in here do seem like they show up properly on the map. And, you know, the other good thing to me about putting something like this out is it is an opportunity for a bit of education, right? So right alongside the map you get these different service levels. So there's three. The city's got A, B, and C. A are the, premier sports fields and high-profile parks, and there we mow them every eight days. So you don't really need a map for that, right? If the city is actually doing what they say they're doing and mowing it every week essentially, then you don't really need a map to tell you that. B level would be like standard parks and sports fields, district-level parks, things like that, and then the other open spaces, and there it's 10 to 18 days is when it's mowed. And so I can see how in that case you get to the park, it looks a little long or a little shaggy, and you're like, "Huh, I wonder when they did last mow this." You can go look it up on the map. And then undeveloped ar- areas is the C level, and, you know, those are only three times a year. So we're not very actively, you know, mowing those- ... those areas, so it c- can be kind of useful to see. But even just the map making those different service levels- ... and, and that information available to people I think is a useful bit of education. I, we'll put links in the show notes for this. I mean, your best bet probably is to just Google Edmonton mowing map. They don't have a really great URL for it. It's under a page called Parkland Care. the mowing map itself, visit gis.edmonton.ca/mowingmap, but it converts into this really long, ugly URL. So maybe a bit of work to do in terms of discoverability of this thing, but I think it's a good thing to introduce overall.
Stephanie Swensrude: And another thing that I'm realizing right now as I'm looking at it is that it's cool, this is s- I'm such a dork, but it's cool to see where city-owned parkland is and, like, what neighborhoods have a lot of it and what neighborhoods don't have that much of it and what parts of neighborhoods don't have that much. I think that's very interesting to a nerd like me.
Mack Male: Yeah. I mean, I remember previous City of Edmonton annual reports talking about how everybody in Edmonton is within a 20-minute walk of natural green space or something like that. And the goal was to improve that. But, it's one thing to say that. It's another thing to visualize it on the map, which I think is- ... kind of interesting. So thanks- ... for bringing that up.
Stephanie Swensrude: Oh, of course. Thanks, Katrina, for showing it.
Mack Male: One other thing on parks we'll do quickly here is just some news about Hawrelak Park. So, for any members who are listening, we did our livestream last Friday, Tim and I. We were talking a bit about Hawrelak Park, and at that time when you looked at the city's website it said, "Still on track to open for early 2026," but not in time for the Silver Skate Festival, which said it was going to be at Laurier Park once again in 2026. Now glo- Global News is reporting that Hawrelak is probably gonna open a little bit earlier than planned- ... maybe the end of 2025 or, or just after the new year, probably not in time for Silver Skate. They're not changing their plan. They're gonna stick with Laurier Park- ... for 2026, but that's a good sign that- ... Hawrelak Park will be open. I went to the Heritage Festival on Monday with the kids. It's the first time actually that I'd been to, the Expo Center. I had been planning to go last year, but then they had that crazy windstorm- ... that ripped through, and so we, and that w- that was the day we were gonna go, so we didn't end up going. So I haven't seen it until, this year, the last year that they're gonna be at the Expo Center in Borden Park. And I know there's been lots of negative reviews about 'em- ... but I did not hate it actually. Like it's not Hawrelak Park obviously- ... and I'll be very glad when they get back to their home in Hawrelak Park, but I think this was a reasonable-... place. I mean, the, when I l- when I got there and when we left, the, the number one thought I had, back to someone who we talked about it earlier on this show, is, "Man, all these people who paid to park here are gonna be s- upset next year" when you don't get to park again at Hawrelak Park- ... and you've got to do the park-and-ride 'cause the Expo Centre has a ton of parking around there. Clearly, lots of people drove, right? Did you go this year, Stephanie?
Stephanie Swensrude: I've actually never been to Heritage Festival-
Mack Male: What? What?
Stephanie Swensrude: ... and it's I'm almost always camping. I know, I know, bad Edmontonian. I'm sorry. I don't th- like, maybe when I was a kid, but I know. I'm sorry. -
Mack Male: We'll get you there one of these years.
Stephanie Swensrude: I know. yeah. - ... it's on the long weekend, so I'm al- almost always camping or, or doing something else. I did, though, see, go to another festival this year that had to move out of Hawrelak Park, which was the Free Will Shakespeare Festival. I saw their production of As You Like It, and the play itself was one of my favorite plays that I saw this year. I loved it, but there is a huge difference between their venue this year, which was just, like, a field in Louise McKinney Riverfront Park and then the Hawrelak Amphitheatre. Like, the amphitheatre's an amazing space. It's beautiful. They have seating as well as, you know, places to lay down a blanket, whereas the Louise McKinney Park was just, like, there was bleachers at the back and then- ... a bunch of places to sit on the ground. And then, you know, if there was people in front of you sitting in chairs and you had a blanket, that was kinda a mess because it was all just flat. So, I think that it'll be really good next year when they go back. Hopefully next year they also do two plays instead of just one 'cause normally they do a drama and a comedy, but this year- ... they only did, As You Like It. But last year, Free Will did this really inventive venue change where they went to community league hockey rinks, that obviously don't have ice on them in the summer, and they transformed those into their set, which I thought-
Mack Male: Oh, very cool.
Stephanie Swensrude: ... that was so cool. I didn't u- unfortunately I didn't make it out to the ones last year. But yeah, they've been very inventive as, you know, theatrical people t- tend to be. but yeah, it'll be great next year when they're able to go back to, Hawrelak.
Mack Male: Well, I'm very excited to see how it all looks. The city says they're putting on the final touches this winter. they're going to make it possible for members of the media to do a bit of a tour to go and see all the changes. Maybe you'll do that, Stephanie- ... and come back and tell us all about it before it opens up to the public again.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yeah, I'd love that.
Mack Male: All right. Well, you're back on the show. This is a little bit more of a regular episode, so we're gonna try this. We're gonna do the rapid fire.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yay.
Mack Male: Jasper Municipal Council has voted unanimously to ask the province to fast-track a rail connection between the town and Edmonton, arguing it would boost tourism and relieve traffic congestion, because nothing says efficient travel like tr- stepping off a train and into a vehicle to actually get to your destinations.
Stephanie Swensrude: New plans for the Standard Life building on Jasper Avenue at 104th Street would see the mostly empty building converted partly into housing and partly into commercial space that steps up the game with respect to amenities. Those could include a rooftop patio, a food hall, golf simulators, and even pickleball courts. Forget the housing crisis. The real crisis is the lack of bookable courts for people who just wanna smash the green ball.
Mack Male: The City of Edmonton has introduced a 200-meter exclusion zone around bike lanes to stop predatory transportation ministers from showing up and pressuring cyclists into a different mode of transportation. Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said, quote, "The last thing someone needs when cycling through Edmonton is to be pressured by aggressive provincial representatives. These new rules will protect Edmontonians from unethical behavior, give cyclists more control over their transportation, and encourage all levels of government to focus on their jurisdictions." Well, I don't know if that was funny, Stephanie- ... but we did it. We did it.
Stephanie Swensrude: I hope that it was funny.
Mack Male: Yeah, I think it's, I think it's just funny.
Stephanie Swensrude: Otherwise, I'll be sad. Everyone laugh, everyone laugh into their, podcast app right now.
Mack Male: If you've got suggestions for future jokes for the rapid fire, feel free to send them our way.
Stephanie Swensrude: Yes, please do.
Mack Male: Stephanie, I'm so glad to have you back co-hosting Speaking Municipally. I'm really looking forward to the next little while. lots of great reporting you folks are doing that you'll be able to come and- ... tell us all about firsthand. I'm sure we'll get into election stuff- ... as we get even closer than 73 days. Until next week, I'm Mack.
Stephanie Swensrude: I'm Stephanie.
Mack Male: And we're-
Both: Speaking Municipally.