Speaking Municipally

Mack Male:
Swing for the fences. This week we spoke to the Riverhawks about a proposed plan that could turn the RE/MAX Field parking lot into housing.

Stephanie Swensrude:
Plus, derelict property owners better look out. Mayor Andrew Knack is coming for you.

Mack:
Hi. I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're...

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 350. Three-fiddy.

Stephanie:
Whoo!

Mack:
Yay! It's a fake milestone. They're all fake, I guess, milestones.

Stephanie:
They're all fake, but it's a nice, like, even, round number, you know?

Mack:
Three-fifty's quite a few episodes. Not many podcasts make it that long, so happy we are still going strong.

Stephanie:
And certainly not many municipal politics in Edmonton podcasts.

Mack:
Definitely not.

Stephanie:
We might be the only one.

Mack:
I think we are the only one, yes. I think we've outlived the Press Gallery podcast that, eh, kinda did some municipal stuff there for a while.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, we've got some interesting things to get into this week. Before we do that, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Edmonton Opera, and we have another short clip for you. This one is about The Magic Flute. Here's Taproot co-founder Karen Unland talking with the artistic director, Joel Ivany.

Karen Unland:
All right. I'm here with Joel Ivany of Edmonton Opera, and he's gonna tell me all about the second mainstage show that Edmonton Opera has in store.

Joel Ivany:
Thanks, Karen. Yeah, it's great to be able to present opera, and, I love opera. I get excited about it. And so, this is a new production of Mozart's The Magic Flute, Die Zauberflöte, and it's kind of one of the OG, musicals in terms of its music, then some dialogue, then music, then some dialogue. In German it's called a singspiel, so like a singing play almost. It features some of the great characters of opera. You have Tamino and Pamina, kind of this prince and princess, and then you have Papageno and Papagena, which is a bird man and a bird woman. You have the Queen of the Night, which sings one of the most arguably iconic arias in all of opera. And then you have Sarastro, who is kind of the This whole opera's about yin and yang and balance and unity. And yeah, this opera hasn't been done in Edmonton for over 10 years, so we're really excited to work with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and fill that jubilee for, two wonderful performances of this kinda iconic opera.

Karen:
Is there anyone in the cast that you're particular I mean, you love them all, but…

Joel:
I love them all.

Karen:
Is that your particular ad?

Joel:
A couple years ago, four or five years ago, we had a great tenor. His name is Andrew Hajdi, who is a wonderful Canadian tenor who sings on concert stages and opera stages all over North America. So he'll be Tamino, which is fantastic. And then, we're excited to welcome an Alberta soprano who's making her mainstage debut with us. Her name is Sydney Bedke. She was one of the first Rumbled vocal prize winners who's sung in London in the UK, and we're really excited to have her here to kinda debut the role of Pamina with us. So that's kind of a really exciting thing for us and for her. And then, in the role of Sarastro we have Alain Coulombe, who is, he's been singing opera, he's sung on our stages for well over a dozen years, and so it's exciting to bring sort of some of the elder Canadian statesmen, into our production to kind of, yeah, celebrate this new production for the city of Edmonton.

Karen:
If someone's never been to the opera before but they consume pop culture in general, what kind of things, like, "If you like this, you might like this," kind of comes to mind?

Joel:
Ooh. If you like fantasy, like if you like Lord of the Rings or Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda, it's that kind of world in terms of, "Where are we?" it's not a known place, but you have magic, you have a quest and a journey and trials, and will they succeed at these trials? They're singing in German but it's in English dialogue, but if you don't understand German we project the words in English above, so understanding shouldn't be a problem. But if you're into kind of escaping the real world for a couple of hours, this is the show for you as well.

Karen:
I think we could use that.

Joel:
Yes.

Karen:
For sure.

Joel:
Agreed.

Karen:
When can we see The Magic Flute?

Joel:
So this new production opens on February 4th, and then there's another performance on Saturday, February 6th, 2027.

Karen:
And that's at the Jube?

Joel:
That's at the Jubilee Auditorium as well, yeah.

Karen:
Great. Thanks, Joel.

Joel:
No problem.

Mack:
Thanks for that, Karen. Okay, first up this week, we gotta do a followup to what we talked about last week. We don't have details yet on the scrambled egg party, but we do have Some followups on scramble intersections. This story kinda blew up over the last week, Stephanie.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so this is an example of, like, you know, when we pay attention to these super hyper-local things, like it's literally three crosswalks. If you were to tell, like, a reporter in Toronto, "Yeah, I wrote a story about three crosswalks and every single news organization in the city picked it up and followed it," they'd be like, "What are you talking about?" But, like, it's just an example of Taproot paying attention, noticing, and, you know, finding stories that matter to people. So we, Michael Janz was, you know, as the councillor for the area, going around and doing the media rounds after people started hearing about this, you know, calling him asking for his thoughts on it. He said, "I've heard a huge outcry about the scrambles, and I think it shows Edmontonians want more pedestrian protection and people-friendly spaces. Many of these are not the usual suspects who write me," he said. "There's a lot of fear about dangerous and distracted drivers, many driving bigger and bigger vehicles who can't see you when they're turning." That's a big issue that I've noticed too.

Mack:
Yep.

Stephanie:
"We had 32 Edmontonians killed last year by drivers on our roads. Vehicle design is part of it, but street design is also part of it." So kind of echoing what Paths for People was saying.

Mack:
Yeah, and like what you were saying, too, which is especially with these large vehicles, you really do have to have your head on a swivel, you know in crosswalks where there is not this phase separation that cro…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Scramble crosswalks bring, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah, and this is another thing, the tinted windows, because you know they teach you in elementary school, "Make sure you make eye contact with the driver," and you can't with the tinted…

Mack:
You can't.

Stephanie:
Windows. So I just, I just wait or I go behind the car because I don't know if they're looking at me.

Mack:
Yeah, the tinted windows is a huge problem. There are so many that are so dark. It's just impossible, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, I'm glad to see we're not the only ones who are outraged about scramble intersections. Or at least there's enough people who thought it was worth talking about that…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like you said, every other media outlet picked it up. Our podcast co-founder Troy Pawlik, also did some reporting about this. So this is an example of what we've talked about it before, where people commit acts of journalism. I think Troy did that. He went and interviewed the Director of Transportation Planning at the city, Natalie Lazurko, and, we'll link to his whole interview in the show notes if you wanna go and find that. You, of course, brought this to us last week. Then you did the story on Monday. You followed it up, and you noticed some other things at council, Janz, again, in particular, right, maybe connected to this? Reading the…

Stephanie:
Yeah, I…

Mack:
Reading the tea leaves a little bit?

Stephanie:
It's I'm kind of reading behind the lines here. Obviously, Janz would've known about this. Pasfor, like the city knew about this, Pasfor people knew about this since December. So I think this motion that he made at the Urban Planning Committee meeting last Monday was potentially linked to this. He made a counselor inquiry, which is different than a motion. It's just asking for information. Can administration provide information outlining high frequency transit routes and the associated on-street parking conditions, including supply, restrictions, and 2025 paid parking revenue? And further, outline potential impacts to parking revenue and transit efficiency arising from the removal of parking during peak periods and identify where additional analysis would be required to inform implementation. I know this is something that, Michael Janz has talked about before, is removing parking from Whyte Avenue to get buses going down faster. And, you know, that's like, that's what we saw on, 101 Street in Chinatown, where everyone went and asked them to, you know, reinstate parking. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this was somehow linked to, you know, getting transit down Whyte faster. That's what everyone wants here. There's no one that wants transit to be slower on Whyte and we're It's just how do we implement it, right?

Mack:
How do we go about it? Yeah. So not explicitly about scrambles, but it could cover that in some of the information that we get back. Okay. So that is due back to Urban Planning Committee May 12th. So a little over a month.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And we'll have hopefully some more information…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
About BRT.

Stephanie:
And then another thing that Michael Janz was saying in interviews that started to come out kind of later in the week was that he wants to push administration to provide data that this is going to essentially speed up buses enough to justify the decrease in safety.

Mack:
Echoing again what Coun. Stevenson was talking about last week. Again, I feel like they have probably provided some data already behind these decisions. Maybe not for, to support the removal of the scramble intersections, but about the transit, speed ups. So I also look forward to seeing the data publicly available.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so like I said, this was one of those stories that it's super hyper-local and then it turned into this really big deal. And that's what we do at Taproot, is we pay attention to things that are seemingly small, like super hyper-local but then they turn into something much bigger. So, if you appreciate the work that Taproot does to bring these stories to light, consider becoming a member or making a one-time contribution so that we can continue doing this. I've got other things in the works, that I've been noticing. So, let us keep up the good work. You can also send our stories to your friends, refer people to sign up to the Pulse and our other roundups. If you've got some money burning a hole in your pocket, you can explore some business partnerships, buy some ads. But yeah, let us, continue doing the great work bringing these stories to everyone's attention.

Mack:
Okay. Well, I'm kinda getting excited for playoff hockey. It looks like the Oilers are gonna make it, but actually I've been most excited lately for Blue Jays. I was a huge, follower of the playoff run and the World Series run last year. And I've kind of followed the Blue Jays off and on, but as I get older, I watch them more and more, and I just, I'm so excited about the team this year. So, I see this item's about baseball. Except no, it's not actually about baseball. It's about parking, which is what everything in Edmonton is about. It's always about parking. River crossing. Stephanie, what is this item all about?

Stephanie:
Oh, okay. So like I said last week, there's a bunch of stuff that went to executive committee while we were recording the episode. So some of these items are a bit old, but we're gonna get to some of them now. So, administration has asked executive committee to give the green light to approve $15 million to start the first phase of the river crossing plan. So that would see the construction or rehabilitation of the roads north of Remax Field, and the first steps towards housing development on the field's parking area. And it's just like a very small first phase of like redevelopment of the whole Rossdale neighborhood. Now, we'll get to the parking in a little bit first, but I wanted to talk about what actually happened at committee, which was that River Valley advocates turned out to express concerns. Now, this is their mandate. This is what they're going to do is advocate, advocates are gonna advocate.

Mack:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Stephanie:
So they of course they don't wanna see development in or near the River Valley, or they want to see sensitive development,…

Mack:
Sensitive development in particular in this area, right? Because it's not just the River Valley. There's a lot of people who think, "Oh, we should just not touch the River Valley. It is our jewel. No development there at all." But this specific part of the River Valley is-… pretty unique, right?

Stephanie:
Yes, exactly. Rossdale is one of the most important historical areas in Alberta. You know, pre-contact this it was a gathering place for Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. It's where the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company both had fur trading posts. It's where John Walter's ferry would land on the north side of the river before we had bridges. Today, the Ross Flats area is still home to traditional burial grounds and the Fort Edmonton Cemetery. It's a beautiful neighborhood with plenty of historic buildings, and it's hard to express how historical this is. Like, seriously, the ground there is just so imbued with importance to me whenever I go there because I think an interesting fact that I always like to talk about is that the Fort Edmonton had to move up the hill a little bit because of flooding, and then eventually, that is where the legislature was. So, I just think it's so interesting how a land can kind of carry importance like that. Let's get back to The topic. In many locations in Rossdale, I think that you'd have little idea that it's such an important place, right?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
It's bisected…

Mack:
Like, it's not obvious, yeah.

Stephanie:
No. It's bisected by these huge roads. There are all these empty dirt lots that turn into mud pits when it rains. It's a pain to take transit to. It's a pain to walk up the hill to downtown. It's really a shame. And you know, I think an important thing to mention is that we always talk about the METS plan and how, part of it was built. And if you don't know, the METS plan was a plan to construct a highway or freeway encircling downtown, which you see in many, Midwestern, southern United cities, United States cities because they thought, "Oh, well, I'll construct a freeway and it'll make it really easy to drive downtown." And then what it actually resulted in was bulldozing a lot of working class communities to put these big roads in that then make it horrible to exist in these downtowns. Luckily, we avoided most of that, except it still happened in Rossdale. The city had to demolish 80 houses in what was a working class, industrial neighborhood, and that is why I think that now the city is really working hard to claw back what Rossdale used to be. They've started closing some of the roads in that area to make it less like you're living in the middle of a highway loop, but, clearly there's still lots of work to do.

Mack:
The James Macdonald Bridge is, of course, the remnants of that plan Here in Edmonton, and that does really kind of separate downtown from the Rossdale area.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
There's all this historic importance and significance, but this has also been an area that's been talked about for a long time for redevelopment, right? So, people always have this fantasy that we're gonna turn the power plant into Granville Island, and you're gonna be able to have a beer over there or something, right? And, you know, there's been various plans or ideas off and on. I remember former Coun. Michael Walters also had a plan for the baseball diamond, he wanted to see more development. So, those things have come and gone. This new plan is much more attuned to what we need, which is housing. So, before we go further into some of the reaction, what would this actually look like if they were to do this first phase? Like, what would that parking lot that is just horrible, dirt, mud, messiness…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Just, yuck, I don't…

Stephanie:
Parking lot is a generous term.

Mack:
It's a generous term, absolutely. What would that be…

Stephanie:
Even for us?

Mack:
What would that be replaced by?

Stephanie:
So, this phase of the project, if it's approved, would be $15 million towards turning that area into four housing parcels. Three of them would be for medium density and one would be for high density, and then would, it would also either reconstruct or create new roads, like, just directly in front of, in front of the field, or north of it. And, like, kind of just making it a little bit easier to get around as a pedestrian. But the main thing is just infrastructure to enable redevelopment on those parcels. And if it's approved, the city plans to start construction in the fall and they'll be ready for sale by the end of 2027, if approved.

Mack:
So, pretty quickly, actually. That would be interesting, and as you said earlier, you know, another challenge, if you're gonna have that many people living in that area, you're gonna wanna have some better transportation connections. So, that's partly what those road reconfigurations are about, but possibly also to enable better transit, right? I think we've talked about this on the show before, that if you wanna get to that baseball diamond to go to a game, it's pretty challenging. You can walk, but it's quite a steep hill. The transit is really not fantastic at all. And if you're driving…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
It's like, I guess you're gonna park in that lot, or in some of the surrounding, you know, roads and things like that, right? So, in this plan, the baseball diamond would remain, yes?

Stephanie:
Yes.

Mack:
No changes there?

Stephanie:
Yeah. Nope, no plans to change. It's all I mean, the ball diamond, if you've been to a Riverhawks game, you know that it's, like, so fun, and the ball diamond is, like, really a center of vibrancy. So no, there's no plans to change that at all.

Mack:
I imagine the Riverhawks are happy about that. And you spoke to somebody about that, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So, I spoke to Steve Hogel, who calls himself the fun advisor of Edmonton Riverhawks. But you know, he does, like, consulting and planning and advising and stuff, and he had absolutely nothing bad to say about the plan.

Steve Hogle:
This is a choice piece of real estate in Edmonton, and it is critical that city planners and City Council get it right. And if it's done right, it's going to be the most happening area in Edmonton, the most beautiful part of Edmonton right along the river. It's absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, and we're fans. It does create some challenges for us in terms of the movement of people, for sure. We are in the final stages of, putting the details and locking down a new park-and-ride system to help address, the lack of transportation in the area.

Stephanie:
So yeah, the Riverhawks are planning to introduce a park and ride. He told me that it's gonna be from Churchill Square. The idea is either, you know, you can park at maybe the library parkade or something, or just take the bus or train downtown, hop on a bus at Churchill Square, just go hop down the hill and then you'll be there. So, not only will this, you know, address the parking shortage, but it'll improve transit access to the park, because right now, I think the 9 goes by when you're heading north off of, like, the Walterdale Bridge. But there's no, like, option coming south. And then the 8 drops you off, like, a 15-minute walk away and that's not that fun.

Mack:
Yeah, that's not close enough. So it'll be a bit of a transition year then for people, right? 'Cause they're gonna lose this parking lot, but they'll gain the Park & Ride. So people who are used to going to RiverHawks games and driving there will need to figure out a different approach.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so this year will just be s-status quo with the addition of the Park & Ride. There's no expected changes to the parking lot which, by the way, Steve Vogel said that he estimates that it can hold up to 2,500 cars, which is a lot.

Mack:
That sounds high to me.

Stephanie:
He said…

Mack:
But I don't know, maybe. Yeah.

Stephanie:
He said if everyone, like, parks really well and they're all snuggly put together, so I don't know.

Mack:
Sure. Nobody parks like that in that lot, yeah.

Stephanie:
No. And then he also You know, and I asked him, "Okay. Yes, we were pushing transit, walking, rideshare, cycling, et cetera, but it's Edmonton. People are still gonna wanna drive." And he kind of, like, said, "Well, you know, people can park a bit further away and walk over." I'm sure he didn't wanna be out there saying, "Yes, park all along the streets of Rossdale and clutter up the roads," because that's a bit of an issue in that area, but I mean, that was kind of what he was insinuating is that, like, if you must drive, just park on a at a nearby road and then walk over.

Mack:
Yeah. Okay, so this would be the first phase. If this gets approved it'll start here pretty quickly. There's other phases. Can you just give us a sense of what the longer term vision is for this?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so the River Crossing Community Redevelopment Project aims to eventually provide housing for up to 4,000 people in the neighborhood. They want to upgrade the transportation network in the area, like I said, make it a little bit easier to get around, and improve underground infrastructure to enable redevelopment. Future phases, yeah, will expand the underground work. There's plans to create a park honoring the rich history of the area, and, a part of this kind of adjacently is to support the redevelopment of the Rossdale Power Plant. Like you said, there are so many plans in effect for this area. There's, like, Touch the Water, the Power Plant, this whole River Crossing Community Redevelopment Project. It's a bit of a mish-mash but, this would be the first phase, which, you know, it'd be nice to see some action on something happening, I guess.

Mack:
Yeah, that's right. I mean, we can talk about all the things we wanna do there forever, but until we actually start putting shovels in the ground…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
None of that's gonna happen. So, I think that's exciting that there's a possibility that we can actually see some movement. I think another complication in that area is the province owns a bunch of land around there too, and so getting them on board with future larger plans will be part of it. This was at committee you said, right, executive committee? So what is the next step for this proposal?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so, they heard from these River Valley advocates and as far as I know, there was no one else there expressing concerns. But it was, it was like right to 5:00 PM so they said, "Okay, thank you. We hear your feedback. Thank you very much. We're gonna requisition this to city council." So that's expected to go to council on April 15th or 17th. Of course, that's always subject to change, but likely in the next couple weeks we'll be hearing more about that.

Mack:
Okay, before we get to our next item, we have another ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by Good Morning!, one of Canada's largest mattress retailers, founded right here in Edmonton. Good Morning!'s flagship retail store is now open at 170th Street Mayfield Common Shopping Centre. It's the best place to see, touch, and test the best mattress collection in Edmonton, from the best-selling Douglas to the award-winning luxury Logan and Cove mattress. Staff at the store don't work on commission. There's no haggling. The price in the store is identical to the price online and you can take home your mattress the same day. Best of all, the company's famous Risk Free Sleep Trial, up to 365 nights, applies to in-store purchases just as it does online. Learn more at goodmorning.com. That's goodmorning.com.

Mack:
Thank you, Stephanie. Okay, another executive committee item that we wanted to get to is about derelict non-residential subclass and vacant properties. It's a bit of a mouthful.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm.

Mack:
What was committee talking about? What is this item all about?

Stephanie:
Yeah, it sounds literally so dry, but I promise it's not. Executive committee directed administration to develop a tax subclass for derelict non-residential properties. So, you might remember that a couple years ago, they introduced, a tax subclass for residential, derelict properties. Now, a derelict property is a property that's, you know, consuming a lot of city resources, whether that's fire or, like, extra garbage, extra bylaw. It's dangerous. Maybe it's, abandoned, but people are still able to access it. And the idea is you tax it higher so that the owner's either motivated to fix it up, demolish it, or sell it.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
So yes, they said, "We wanna bring this forward." And what they also need to do is bring forward a service package to the budget deliberations for the software upgrade, that will be needed to implement it. Administration has identified 20 properties in Edmonton that could potentially be considered for the subclass. The total assessment value is $29 million for the subclass.

Mack:
So this is non-residential so this would be like office buildings or,…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Not, like not homes essentially, but…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Industrial or office types of, buildings. So that's why you get that assessment value of 29 million for only 20 properties probably.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Any notable ones in that list of 20?

Stephanie:
So, it wasn't included in the report, but one thing that's been in the news relatively recently, and it was kind of good timing in a weird way, but if you remember a few months ago, the Aviary, the building beside it had a fire and the Aviary had to close down for a while.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
And that was an abandoned building. There was, someone the owner said in a news story that through the window you could see a calendar that was turned to, like, December 2004 or something like that.

Mack:
Wow.

Stephanie:
Like, it's been some, it's just these vacant buildings that are sitting there and they're clearly pose a safety risk to people and property, because the aviary had to close down for quite a long time. So in a in a weird way, like, this is on people's minds, right? Especially Ashley Salvador, because she is the councillor for the ward that the aviary's in, and she is the one who spearheaded the residential derelict property tax subclass. So I mean, eh, we could assume that a property like that would be on the list.

Mack:
Right. That makes sense. The residential one that you mentioned was really successful, right? So this non-residential one is meant to build on that success, right? What are, what are the figures about the residential version of this subclass?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so starting in 2024, the city assessed about 200 properties in the residential derelict subclass, and then after that, about 60 of them were demolished or remediated after it was introduced. And it's been, they're so successful that they're expanding it citywide, because at first it was just in the metro area, the, like the core of the city.

Mack:
This looks to me like evidence that sometimes sticks work. You know, you can add carrots, but some sticks are also useful from time to time, right? And this tax subclass is a pretty simple thing for council to bring in, right? So,…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I saw council and the mayor in particular talking about this quite a bit. "We're coming for you." The mayor says.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so administration kind of recommended there's no need to rush right into doing this. It's not like we need it tomorrow.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
And a couple reasons for that. One of these is the software upgrades, and they want some time to kind of nail down the definition of the, of the tax subclass. It's a little different from the residential version. But, the report also said that the threat of higher taxes can sometimes be enough to motivate owners of derelict properties to demolish or sell. So yes, Mayor Ager-nack said, "We're coming for you." But you don't have to worry about that if you just start maintaining your properties. I'd much rather just fix the problem now than have to start coming down hard. When these properties are allowed to exist in this state, it's bringing down communities.

Mack:
Absolutely. Okay, well, this doesn't seem like it'll be very controversial, assuming they approve the funding for the software upgrade. But you were gonna clarify, there's actually two things here, right? So…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
There's derelict, which you've given us the helpful definition of, but there's also vacant. So what is the vacant piece of this?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so there was actually two reports that went to council. One of them was about derelict non-residential. So like I said, derelict properties disproportionately consume city resources. They create safety hazards and negatively impact surrounding properties. Now, vacant simply means that it's empty. It doesn't necessarily have the safety issues. Of course, many derelict properties are vacant and many vacant properties are derelict. However, vacant is much harder to define and therefore to, target to deal with. Coun. Ashley Salvador put forward a motion, A, asking for the derelict non-residential tax subclass and the software upgrades. Then another part of it was calling for a report with options for a vacant residential subclass within the redeveloping area for service properties that used to have a permanent improvement and have had no active development over a period of time. In English…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
That basically means, in the core of the city, if it's a residential property, a house that is vacant, it might have had a fence up at some point, but now it doesn't, there hasn't been any development there for a while, we wanna tax it higher. That's essentially what it means.

Mack:
And that presumably would be to prevent a vacant property from becoming derelict, I imagine? Like, if it's vacant now, but it's not really causing those safety hazards, maybe it could over time? Or what, why would they want to create a separate subclass just for vacant residential properties?

Stephanie:
Well, I think the motivation is just to spur redevelopment, and, you know, vacant properties don't really do anything for the community. You know, depending on how long. Obviously, if it's, for a few months while they're waiting to find new tenants or waiting to sell, it's different…

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
But if it's just been sitting there for a super long time, it just kind of brings down the vibes. So in BC they have a vacant property tax, a speculation and vacancy tax. It's designed to turn vacant homes into housing for people in British Columbia and ensure foreign owners and those with primarily foreign income contribute fairly to BC's tax system. So they take into account how the owners use the property, how the, where the owners have residency status, and how they earn and report their income. And then the revenue collected through the tax supports affordable housing in areas where the tax applies. I'm n…

Mack:
And this was intended in BC to prevent, you know, all these foreign investors from China owning these condos in Vancouver and pricing local folks out of the market, essentially.

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. Now, I'm not saying that's what this motion is trying to do. Eh, the, really this is just like a fact-finding mission, this report, right? It's like, what could we possibly do to address these vacant homes?

Mack:
Right. And then I see a part of, another part of the motion is to do the same thing, but for non-residential properties.

Stephanie:
Yeah, basically. So let me just summarize everything.

Mack:
Yes, that would be helpful.

Stephanie:
'Cause there's a lot of weird tax stuff going on here, but I promise it is very interesting. Okay, derelict residential will be expanding citywide soon. Derelict non-residential council will vote on that during fall budget deliberations. If I had to guess, it's gonna go through. Vacant residential, a report is coming about a possible tax subclass. Vacant non-residential a report is coming about a separate possible tax subclass. Get that straight?

Mack:
Okay, got it. That's helpful. There's four pieces, derelict-derelict vacant-vacant. Two on the non-residential two on the residential side. Okay, great. We've got that. If they approve it in the budget deliberations, they get that software upgrade, does it start right away or what's next on this?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so before it can be fully implemented, there is some logistics that need to be ironed out, like nailing down a definition and dedicating a year for tax assessors to examine candidate properties and determine whether they are indeed derelict. And, you know, depending on how soon that software upgrade comes and how soon, like, they get everything ready, the city says that a derelict non-residential subclass could be taxed at a higher rate by 2030.

Mack:
Okay. So not as fast as I was thinking, 'cause it's 2026 and 2030 seems like a long way off. But, given the success of the residential one, I'm sure they'll be keen to bring this in as soon as possible on the, non-residential side of things as well.

Stephanie:
Yeah, it's just there's also a lot more complicated because of the Municipal Government Act, and introducing a new subclass takes time and you are also There's a limit to how high you can tax a non-residential property, and that is tied to the lowest residential property. So it's way more complicated to introduce a new non-residential tax and that's basically why it can take a few more years compared to the residential one.

Mack:
Okay. Well, thanks for breaking that down for us. Next week's episode will come out at its usual time, Friday at noon, but we're gonna record at a different time, 'cause we've got some vacation and it's Easter coming up, and there's just a whole bunch of schedule changes going on here. But you've looked ahead and found some interesting stuff in the Audit Committee meeting that will be taking place, next week. What did you find?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so Audit Committee and interesting is normally a little bit of an oxymoron, normally it's pretty tame, but I was looking at the Office of the City Auditor report and I found some crazy tea that I just thought…

Mack:
Okay.

Stephanie:
We'd bring up and that, like, I don't think we'll ever get more details about this, which makes me so sad. But basically, the Office of the City Auditor responds to hotline, reports of, you know, fraud allegations, misconduct, employee issues, and, there were a few pretty insane things that, are included. So according to this report, a malfunctioning ARC card machine allowed an unknown number of people to steal about $65,000 from the city through fraudulent transactions between September 2024 and June 2025. They were reported through these hotline reports. The city found over 300 suspicious ARC cards and blocked them as And they had about 28,000 remaining on them, reducing the loss of revenue to about 45,000, which is still a lot.

Mack:
That is a lot of money in transit fares on these ARC cards. I guess it's not easily noticeable. 65,000 sounds like a large amount, but spread over 300 cards, it's actually not that much on each individual card, so you probably wouldn't notice that. No details I presume on exactly how people did this? Like what I'm trying to imagine how an ARC machine would malfunction to allow you to do this. I guess it lets you put more money on the card than you would have paid.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I There Unfortunately, there's, like, no extra details in this report.

Mack:
They don't want anyone else to do it.

Stephanie:
Yeah, exactly. And that, you know, they reported the case to the police, but due to the length of time and that the cards weren't registered, no charges were laid, and, the report does say that ETS has reinforced control procedures to prevent future thefts. Now, I will present my tinfoil hat theory, that's actually not even that tinfoil hat theory. My theory is that someone realized that they could load an ARC card but then, whatever reason, at this specific machine, their card, like, the chip reader didn't work and so the money would go on the ARC card, but the credit card would not be charged. So what they did or maybe they spread it around to this unknown number of people…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
What they would do is go load an ARC card with, say, 100 bucks, go to someone else and say, "Hey, do you want this? It has a 100 bucks on it, but I'll give it to you for 50 bucks." So they spent $0 on this card and they make $50 on it.

Mack:
Interesting, yeah.

Stephanie:
I have no idea, but that's what maybe is possible, there's, like, this underground black market ARC card thing. We will probably never know, but yeah, there's big theft going on in the ARC card community apparently.

Mack:
Well, we know you'd be a creative criminal then, is what we've learned on this item. You've already devised a whole strategy.

Stephanie:
Yes, a friend told Me about this strategy. I have no insider information on, what happened here.

Mack:
Okay, well, that's definitely some tea. What else did you find in the, auditor's report?

Stephanie:
Yeah, there's, like, a bunch of different, claims and these were the ones that were, investigated and substantiated. Half of the half of them weren't even substantiated so there's even more claims that you can go and look at, we'll link it in the show notes. Other investigations were conducted into two employees that had a second job that conflicted with their city employment, so they were, like, working on the side and making, like, two salaries while still working at the city. That is a little bit salacious. Another one is that an employee was accused of creating sexually explicit social media content at a city workplace. Wild, but then the…

Mack:
Not safe for work.

Stephanie:
Exactly. But then, the report found or the investigation found that, yes, they were creating social media content, but it wasn't necessarily sexually explicit. It was not identifiable that it was at the city workplace in the content, and they couldn't prove that it was done on city time.

Mack:
Ah, interesting.

Stephanie:
So what I'm thinking is that someone was taking, like, some thirst traps, some, like, some, like, cute selfies and, like, their coworker was like, "God, I'm so mad at Derek is always, like Is always, like, taking a, taking a sexy picture next to the pickup truck." You know what I mean? And then they investigated and found, no, we can't, we can't, we…

Mack:
Not enough evidence. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Not sexy enough. Can you imagine? Your selfie not being deemed…

Mack:
Poor Derek.

Stephanie:
Sexy enough.

Mack:
That's too bad.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Okay, then the last one I wanted to say was that there's just, like, so many accusations of nepotism and favoritism among city staff. So that's what's going on at, the City of Edmonton.

Mack:
I mean, favoritism probably gets accused all the time.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I feel like we're in this era of nepotism. It seems like all the famous people in Hollywood and music are nepo babies, so…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Perhaps not surprising that we'd see that trickle into everyday life as well.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Okay, well, we'll hear more about that potentially at the Audit Committee meeting and, maybe we'll get a few more details. Who knows? Okay, before we close, we've got one last item that we thought we would ruminate on just a little bit or reflect upon, and that is the Boston Pizza on Jasper Avenue is going to close.

Stephanie:
RIP to a real one. No, I think it's closed already also.

Mack:
Is it closed already? Okay, it's already closed.

Stephanie:
So if you wanted to get a fish bowl or some Bandera bread on Jasper Avenue, you're out of luck, and you must walk to the one in the ICE District instead. I'm so sorry.

Mack:
This sounds like this shouldn't be a big loss. I mean, that place has not been touched in a long time. It's right next to the beautiful brand new O-day'min Park. There's a lot of redevelopment happening in that area, as you pointed out in the past, some of these new towers, residential towers, student housing going up. I really hope that lot on Jasper, that building can be turned into something, you know, better suited…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
A better use of that land. I mean, there's also the parking lot right next door that we also wanna see redeveloped. But I personally have a lot of history with this Boston Pizza, so I'm a little bit sad about it. When I was in high school, which is a long time ago now, that is where all my friends and I would go. Whenever somebody had a birthday party or we were celebrating something, we would always go to that Boston Pizza. At the time, clearly, I did not know much about food and local and all the rest of it. Cactus cut potato skins all the time, all the time. So, there's some memories that are gonna be lost, for me at least, when this building goes away. Not so sad that I don't wanna see it go. I'd rather see something better in this, you know, prime part of our downtown. But yeah, I'll remember some of those things.

Stephanie:
Yeah, I hate Boston Pizza. I think that it's so expensive for such terrible food. I have a friend that uses, like, the Boston Pizza metric for deciding whether she wants to go to a restaurant. So it either has to be better quality food than Boston Pizza or it has to be cheaper than Boston Pizza, and that is how she decides if she wants to go to a restaurant. You know, I agree, I think best case scenario is that they is that whole parcel with the restaurant and the parking lot gets razed and turned into housing. It's right next to O-day'min Park. That would be lovely to add even more lots there. We'll see what happens. I'm really worried that it's just gonna become a host of, like, crappy restaurants that change over every eight months into something…

Mack:
I really hope not.

Stephanie:
Something new.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Before we finish with this Boston Pizza item, I understand at the editorial meeting recently That you guys had this interesting story from our editor-in-chief and co-founder Karen Unland. So welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Karen. We'd love to hear your Boston Pizza downtown story.

Karen: Okay. But just understand that it portrays me in a very bad light, and I would like the, I would like the listeners' forgiveness in advance.

Stephanie:
Don't I don't think so, but go ahead, please.

Karen:
Okay, it's 1998, winter of 1998. I'm working as a reporter at the Edmonton Journal. I've filed my story, it's the end of the day, probably past the end of the day, like pretty late. And I've three of my friends, 'cause our newsroom was quite big back then and they're in the same boat, and so I just say like, "Why don't you guys come out to dinner with my boyfriend and me? Because, you're hungry, I'm hungry, and it'll be fine." So I call him, I call Christopher, and I just said, "I know we're gonna go out for dinner, but these girls that are hungry too, so let's just go out for dinner. Let's just go to the Boston Pizza on Jasper Ave." And unbeknownst to me, he had made reservations at Rick's Grill, which was a thing back then, and he was going to propose to me that night. But he couldn't tell me why I could not…

Mack:
Right.

Karen:
… invite my friends to dinner and why it was dumb for us to go to Boston Pizza instead of the surprise dinner that he had planned for me. And so he just says, "Okay." And then he met me and my three friends from, the Journal at Boston Pizza and sat there through Jasper Avenue Boston Pizza dinner with the engagement ring burning a hole in his pocket. And thank goodness for me not thinking better of this, 'cause good grief, I gave him a good reason to just abandon ship right there. (sighs) So he we make it through dinner. And…

Stephanie:
Eating your, like, pizza and your cactus cut and like your fish bowls.

Karen:
And just like, you know, giddy from too long of a day at work and blah. Anyway, then the girls go home and we get in the car and we're driving on our way home and Christopher says, "Let's stop by the house that we had just put a, an offer on." And I think, "I'm kinda tired and I'd like to go home, but I also feel like I've kinda pushed my luck already." So I say, "Sure." And so then we stopped at our little funny house in Grosvenor, and he gets down on one knee and still proposes, thank goodness.

Stephanie:
That's so cute. I love that. Such a funny story. I can imagine him because, like, the boyfriend being there while all the girls are like, "Oh, my God," and then da-na-na-na-na-na-na.

Mack:
This is what I was talking about.

Stephanie:
Boston Pizza, where memories are made.

Mack:
The BP's has memories, right? Absolutely. Did you guys go back there, Karen? Did you go back there and, you know, celebrate your anniversary at BP's or something like that?

Karen:
We actually did. On our 25th wedding anniversary, he surprised me by, getting an Airbnb in the vicinity of the Boston Pizza and we had dinner there.

Mack:
Amazing. What a romantic.

Stephanie:
I wonder if The Office had been made in Canada, if it would, if it would've been like, "I feel God in this Boston Pizza tonight." Because I feel God right now.

Mack:
Well, if you, listener, have, memories of the Boston Pizza you wanna share, send it our way. We'd love to hear some more of those.

Stephanie:
Yes, please.

Mack:
We can talk about those in a future episode.

Stephanie:
Please.

Mack:
Thank you, Karen, for coming to share that with us.

Stephanie:
Thank you.

Karen:
My pleasure.

Mack:
Okay, well, you're probably listening to this and it's Easter, so we wish you a happy Easter long weekend. You gonna get some mini eggs?

Stephanie:
Eat lots of chocolate. Yep, I…

Mack:
You a mini Egg fan?

Stephanie:
I've already I'm in the mini eggs, bro. Oh, my God, am I in the mini eggs. I'm about 55%.

Mack:
The cream eggs?

Stephanie:
And the cream eggs as well, yup.

Mack:
Yeah. I love those things too. But just this weekend, not the rest of the year.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Just around Easter, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
350th episode. Thank you for those of you who have been along on the journey from the very beginning. For all of the folks who have started listening or watching more recently, we're so glad to have you here. As Stephanie said earlier in the show, if you wanna support the work that we do on Speaking Municipally and at Taproot Edmonton, we'd love for you to become a member. You can learn all about that at taprootedmonton.ca. And we'll be back again next week with another episode. Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.