Speaking Municipally

Mack:
I am Dunluce with this conversation. This week, council approved the sale of surplus land for affordable housing to some opposition.

Stephanie:
Plus, a downtown group presented a groundbreaking solution to social disorder, more police.

Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, Episode 352. This is gonna be a little bit of the, like, more things change, the more they stay the same episode. I feel like a few of the items we've got to talk about today, we've had the same conversation about before.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And I feel like that's gonna happen in hockey, too. I see you have the Oilers jersey on. This could be the fifth playoffs in a row that we play the LA Kings in the first round.

Stephanie:
Oh, man. That is I didn't realize that. Wow. I'm ready.

Mack:
We might as well beat them for a fifth time, right? It'it's either gonna be Los Angeles or Anaheim. By the time you're listening to this episode, we will know. Playoffs start, what is it? Sunday? Monday? It's coming up.

Stephanie:
Our first game, I believe, will be Sunday or Monday. The other games start on Saturday. Playoff hockey is starting. Two and a half months or so of getting…

Mack:
Hopefully.

Stephanie:
Drunk three times a week.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
I'm just joking. No, I'm ready. And you know, I was thinking about, like, obviously the last two years. First the last In 2024, so much hope.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
It's an amazing time. 2025, really brutal. 2026, I'm hoping that what's gonna happen is it's like, you know, when you're when you've been single for a while and everyone's like When you least expect it, that's what's gonna happen. I'm hoping that when we least expect to win the Stanley Cup is when it happens. So 2026 is our year.

Mack:
I hope you're right. It'it's Cup or bust in Edmonton these days.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Ugh.

Mack:
But this regular season has certainly not been one that gives a lot of hope or promise for the post-season. So like you're saying…

Stephanie:
That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah, maybe this will be the thing. Maybe we just needed to coast a little more into the playoffs to get to that elusive…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Final victory. Okay. Well…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I'm looking forward to that as well. We pay attention to the news, every day in the Pulse, every week, what's going on, and there's a lot of Oilers in the news generally, but around this time of year, it just really amps up. Everything is about this. Are restaurants getting enough…

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Business from all the people coming downtown? Traffic, parking, construction. It all has an Oilers tinge to it. But not the items in this episode. We'll get to that right away, but before we do that, we have an ad for you.

Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by U of A Reads, a podcast from the University of Alberta. It features conversations with alumni authors about the stories behind their books. Each episode goes beyond the page, diving into the experiences, questions, and moments that shaped their writing. Listen for everything from deeply personal stories to big conversations around history, identity, and social change. It's a great listen if you love books or just want to understand the thinking behind them. Find U of A Reads wherever you get your podcasts.

Mack:
And if you wanna listen to a preview trailer, check out our last episode, 351. We had a little clip in there for you. Okay, first up on our agenda this week, affordable housing. And as I teased a little bit earlier off the top, this is one of those things where we have declared that housing is a challenge in Edmonton, and yet often we are faced with the question of whether or not to build and approve more housing, and we don't always do it. So anyway, tell us what happened with this, affordable housing project up in the north, I think it is.

Stephanie:
Right. Yeah. So this story kind of starts 20 years ago, because around 2006, the school boards declared a bunch of land surplus. This might sound familiar because recently there's been some action on, like, these surplus school sites, but these parcels are a little bit different. They were related to the First Place Program. It was one way that the city built affordable housing on these surplus sites, but they were for first time homeowners instead of renters. So, the project website says that the First Place Program teams with banks and builders to develop vacant, school sites into attractive town homes. The homes are market priced with a five-year deferral on the land portion of the mortgage, making them more accessible to first time home buyers. So it's a little bit of a different approach because a lot of the surplus sites that are coming up now are for renters, but this was, like, for homeowners. So a bit different and, I think kind of shows that it was from, like, 20 years ago, as opposed to the approach these days.

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
So what happened at council this week? Administration needed council's permission to remove four of those sites from the program because it's over. It's kind of a bit of a technicality. They're like, "the program's over. Now we need to re-designate these sites." So administration proposed retaining sites in Deschen and LaPerle for open space, so they would stay as they are, as, like, soccer fields, kind of, like, community, let the kids run around places, and then moving Dunluce and Sifton Park to affordable housing, so kind of keeping them as that affordable housing designation.

Mack:
But with a new approach to build the housing there.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Basically, it wouldn't necessarily fit into the First Place Program. It wouldn't fit into the specific surplus school site. It would just be like, "We are, opening this up for affordable housing." they received the report. They're like, "This is a great program," but then Coun. Erin Rutherford introduced a motion calling for a different direction for the Dunluce site. So this is in her ward, and she said that her ward has contributed more units, for affordable housing than the rest of the city. There's been 14 new affordable housing projects since 2019. There's five more in the works. And, there's 7.3% of the units are affordable housing. And she said, "Yes, the neighborhood has green space and parkland, so they have access to it, but it's not a very good quality." So that's kind of what the balance in this conversation was between open space and affordable housing. She says there's enough affordable housing and there's not enough green space, but if you look at the, targets laid out in the city plan, in city policy, Dunluce does technically have the target amount of green space, and it is below the target amount of affordable housing, which is 16% per neighborhood.

Mack:
Do you think she's responding to, input from residents about this? Like, are people in that community saying, "The green space we have is not adequate, we need something better," or is this more about appeasing people who feel like we've built too much affordable housing in that area?

Stephanie:
Well, that's a great question, and the word Dunluce lit up a little fire in my brain, because I'm like, "Why do I, why does this neighborhood stick out to me?" And it's because a few, within the last few years, a coalition of residents has formed called Stop the Destruction in Dunluce, but it's all related to neighborhood renewal, because they don't…

Mack:
Ah.

Stephanie:
Want narrowed roads, they don't want bike lanes, they just want a like-for-like replacement. Clearly, the people in Dunluce are, passionate, civically engaged folks, which we love to see people civically engaged, but I'm not sure if this is directly related to the affordable housing and the neighborhood renewal, but I would have to assume that if people are fired up about neighborhood renewal in Dunluce, they might also be fired up about affordable housing in Dunluce. And another reason is that on this surplus school site, on this big field, there is another affordable housing program that's been done through a different affordable housing thing. So it's not only one, it's not just one portion of the site that's being turned into affordable housing. It'll be a second one. So, yeah, I think I've mentioned on the show before that I grew up across the street from one of those great fields in Mill Woods, and yeah, there's, like, literally nothing on them, it's just to run around, but like, when you're eight years old, you have to run around in, on a field.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
You know? Like, it's…

Mack:
Absolutely.

Stephanie:
It's, it was a, it was a, core memories galore in my in my surplus school site.

Mack:
Got it. Okay, but just to recap the core facts, not at 16% for affordable housing in that community, and at the target or above for green space based on our guidelines.

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Okay. So what happened with her motion then?

Stephanie:
So, this was one of those council discussions where it went, and there was an amendment to the motion, then an amendment to the amendment, then an amendment to the amendment to the amendment.

Mack:
Yep.

Stephanie:
And just, like, hours of confusing procedural stuff. Shout out to, Coun. Reid Clarke for chairing this meeting. It, there was a lot of, like, weirdness that had to be navigated, but basically, Coun. Michael Janz introduced an amendment that just reverted back to administration's recommendation. So that would be, retaining the sites in Dechene and La Perle for open space and Dunluce and Sifton Park for affordable housing. And then they made another addition to it that instead, they will circulate the La Perle site to see if the city can find a municipal use for it other than open space. Okay, so Dechene, open space. Dunluce and Sifton Park, affordable housing. La Perle, question mark, maybe affordable housing, maybe open space, not sure yet.

Mack:
And how did that, how did those amendments go? Did that pass?

Stephanie:
I…

Mack:
The convoluted amendments that they were crafting?

Stephanie:
So the I will, I will just say what ended up passing in the end.

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
Which is it passed eight-five and councillors Clarke, Elliott, Parmar, Principe, and Rutherford voted against the motion. So essentially they voted against affordable housing in Dunluce on that particular parcel.

Mack:
But in the end, we will go forward with…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Administration's original recommendation with the only change being that LaPerle could have some other municipal use.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
If they, if they find something relevant for that.

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
Okay. Five councillors you might not typically see vote together, at least not Rutherford with the others.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I don't know if it's a, it's a bit early in the term. I don't know if we have clear blocks yet, but, that's kind of, kind of interesting to me. This just feels like we've declared that we need to build more affordable housing, we have these plans in place, we've decided we want to spread this around the city. When a little bit of opposition comes up in a situation like this, council needs to stick to its guns. I'm glad in this case they ultimately did, although eight-five is not exactly, you know, a unanimous ringing endorsement of the need to build more affordable housing in the city. Was that the end of the conversation?

Stephanie:
Not quite. So, there was a subsequent motion calling for a report essentially exploring how affordable housing can be more evenly distributed across the city. As we know, it's not. You know, neighborhoods north and east of the downtown core have a lot more affordable housing, and they also obviously have more shelter spaces, and there's just, and there was even talk of potentially changing that 16% figure to make it a little bit more realistic to reach it in other, in other neighborhoods. I also wanted to go back a little bit to what you said about, you know, the little bit of community opposition. That was something that a lot of the councillors echoed is that, yeah, we have declared this housing and homelessness emergency, and if we said no every time a community opposed affordable housing, there'd be no affordable housing in Edmonton…

Mack:
Absolutely.

Stephanie:
Because there will always be someone that doesn't want to see affordable housing. I think a lot of this question also comes down to, like, is affordable housing a negative thing to have in a neighborhood? And that's the question.

Mack:
I don't think that's Yeah, I don't think that's a guarantee either, right?

Stephanie:
No, of course not.

Mack:
I think that is how people who live in the neighborhood and who have maybe outdated ideas, like you mentioned earlier, even in the neighborhood renewal, wanting to build like-for-like rather than adopting, you know, new standards and things that have improved since then people just don't want to see that change. But I'd rather have more people living in the neighborhood. You get more people in there's more vibrancy, there's more activity, safety is better 'cause there's more eyes. Like, a big empty field isn't gonna give you those things.

Stephanie:
No.

Mack:
Right? Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah, and like, how many times have you heard someone say, a friend, a family member, "Oh, I wish I could find an affordable place to live in my neighborhood." That's fine. Everyone's like, "Yeah, I would love that." And then as soon as it goes, "We are going to put affordable housing in your neighborhood," it's like, "No!"

Mack:
No. How could you do that?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, this is following the predictable pattern. I guess the next thing that'll happen here is we'll start to see development permits and, you know, more specific re-zonings for this, and then people will complain about parking and how there's not going to be enough parking because of all these people moving into the neighborhood. There's a progression here, Stephanie, that typically happens. Okay, well, speaking of a vocal minority getting its way Against established plans, we gotta do a quick update on 101th Street. So we talked from recent episodes about the priority transit measures that are, in place there, so this is the removal of parking on 101st Street. There's Part of that is closer to Jasper Avenue, but the contentious part is up near Chinatown, between 107th Avenue and Kingsway, and council had previously approved this, and we had eliminated those parking stalls. I think you said there were 16, like, not a huge number.

Stephanie:
Something like that, yeah.

Mack:
Right? To improve the efficiency of the buses that go along there. But there's this vocal minority of business owners who complained about this, and have been since this first was introduced, I think it was March 2025 the idea first came up, and now they've got their way thanks to Coun. Anne Stevenson, who seems more than willing to accommodate this vocal minority rather than sticking with our established plans and agreed-upon directions, which is really frustrating to me. Like, this is not a principled decision. This is a reactive decision. So, the vote was seven to five, and what they decided to do was remove the dedicated bus lane from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM on weekdays. So the northbound lane, there was gonna be no parking. The southbound lane, it was just after 6:00 PM. Now they're gonna remove that ban during the daytime parking for these businesses. You've been looking at this story for a few weeks now, Stephanie. What do you make of this?

Stephanie:
You know, I think that this is one of those decisions that I don't know if it's gonna have a humongous impact. I don't spend much time over in that part of the city, so I'm not really sure, but I think, like, eh, during the day, it probably isn't super busy along 101th Street, but, again, I'm not super sure, even though I am an alumni of Victoria School of the Arts, if you couldn't tell, and But yeah, I think they're keeping it on during rush hour. I guess that's the important part.

Mack:
The city administration, ETS already did the analysis. The reason this was put forward as one of these transit priority measure areas is because we knew that it would have an impact…

Stephanie:
Right.

Mack:
If we let the buses work more efficiently. Council Stevenson is saying that she doesn't think that this initial pilot has seen huge gains and efficiencies. I'm hearing from ETS that they disagree on this. We will find out, I guess, soon enough, because I'm confident that this will be revisited and actually Coun. Michael Janz put forward a motion exploring the possibility of eliminating street parking along bus routes during rush hour, which I think would be pretty interesting if that was, you know, brought in more widely. But, you know, when this first came in, the business community was upset about it and the city was asked, like, "Why are we doing this?" And they said, "Curbsides and public parking are strategic public assets. Curbside management is a critical building block in helping to achieve more equitable, affordable, and efficient modes of transportation for all." We have the city plan. We're trying to shift transportation modes. We wanna make sure that transit is more efficient. The business community suggested solution here is to add more bus routes, add more buses, as if it's cheap and easy to just add service hours. Like, we know there's already a huge gap, right? That's not feasible.

Stephanie:
How much could a banana cost? It's $10.

Mack:
Just not feasible. This is a practical measure that was put in place for data-driven reasons as well as principled value-based reasons aligning with the city plan. But a few people complain, and the councillor makes a motion that narrowly passes, but passes nonetheless, and we've taken, again, another step back.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
It's frustrating.

Stephanie:
I guess, the, these two items are kind of a tale of two, tale of two decisions, where, one, they're both responding to, you know, community opposition against a city policy that is quite clear. So affordable housing…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
We need more of it, community opposition to it, where And then there's a motion that is introduced, and then that one fails, but then for this one, the policy is we need to be getting bus, buses down the road faster, there's community opposition, and a motion passes. So it's a little bit different.

Mack:
Yeah. We've gotta stop making decisions based on a vocal minority, 'cause like you said, there will always be someone opposed, there will always be some opinions. Engagement does happen on these things. Maybe it's not to the quality or quantity that everyone would be thrilled about, but it's not, it's not like these decisions are made randomly, until they get to council, and then sometimes it does feel A little bit random.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But there are other transit priority measures in place, and I'm sure this will come back again. The other quick update on this item, that the council did progress a little bit, those other bus rapid transit routes, so B1, which is Century Park to Castle Downs, and B2, which is West Edmonton Mall to Bonnie Doon. What this means essentially is that they'll talk about potentially funding them in the budget deliberations Speaker 3: In the fall. So they've made it past the, "Should we put this on the list of potential things to fund?"

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And they voted, "Yes, let's do that."

Stephanie:
Extremely anticlimactic, but Yeah, we'll have to wait. And also, just a bit about Janz's motion about eliminating street parking along the bus routes during rush hour, that is sort of related to the Whyte Av-… projects. You can see why, you know, if along Whyte Av, if you took away street parking, potentially the bus could (tongue click)…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Flow down that with no, with nothing in its way, so it's kind of the, maybe the beginning steps of dedicated bus lanes on Whyte Avenue.

Mack:
All right, our third item today, we're kind of coming south a little bit.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Now, we're into downtown proper, and the Downtown Revitalization Coalition is back. They were out there for a while, but they're back in the news. What did they release this week?

Stephanie:
They have released a policy briefing document positing that Edmonton can be the safest city in Canada. And how do you think they want to do that, Mack?

Mack:
Based on previous things they've put out into the world, it has to be about more police. Am I right?

Stephanie:
Ding.

Mack:
Ah.

Stephanie:
We'll get into, we'll get in it's, I'm obviously oversimplifying a little bit for the bit, but we'll get into it. Okay. So our city's, our downtown's problem, it's broken into two kind of parts with a few strategies to address each. First is Edmonton's public spaces, particularly in the downtown core, I'm reading right from the document here, are not consistently experienced as safe, accessible or welcoming. Transit stations, LRT platforms, and pedway corridors remain chronic hotspots where disorder and unpredictable behavior create an environment that many residents actively avoid. Even when serious incidents are limited, the cumulative effect of ongoing disruption reduces confidence in our public spaces and discourages transit use, downtown mobility and economic activity. So, the four strategies to target this, issue in public spaces are targeted intervention strategies for open air drug use and disorder, improved deployment and integration of safety personnel, increased visibility and deterrence in public spaces, and that's of, enforcement, police, and stronger coordination across governments and systems.

Mack:
Okay, well, stronger coordination, I think this is a completely ridiculous, strategy. How much more coordination could there be? It's not like the stakeholders involved in this have never had a conversation, right? Everybody's already coordinated and aware of the problem, so why suggest Just stop talking about greater coordination. That, we've done that countless times.

Stephanie:
We've coordinated enough.

Mack:
We've coordinated to the death. Targeted intervention strategies is a pretty interesting way of, what, openly arresting people for using drugs?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But that requires, of course, actually paying police officers to walk the beat downtown, which…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
We do not do.

Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. So they go into it a little bit more under each of these points, but just to answer your question, for targeted intervention strategies for open air drug use and disorder, the three points under that are coordinated enforcement in high traffic public areas, rapid response from trained intervention teams, and immediate pathways into detox treatment and stabilization services. So yeah, that's your answer.

Mack:
Increased visibility and deterrence in public spaces, I'm not necessarily opposed to, but like I said, even though we've continued increasing funding for police, there aren't a ton of police officers walking the beat downtown. They have not necessarily been deployed here, even though we keep hearing about disorder downtown being the problem. Okay, well, so this is the first problem hit, identified, so some strategies there. What is the second problem that the Downtown Revitalization Coalition has identified in this document?

Stephanie:
Okay. Edmonton's current incident response system is not equipped to respond quickly, appropriately, or consistently to individuals experiencing acute distress in public spaces. Businesses and residents don't know where to call to get help for people or whether that help will arrive. Frontline responders, including police, transit officers, and security personnel, are regularly faced with situations where individuals cannot safely remain in place, but do not require detention. In these moments, there are a few, there are few appropriate options. Emergency rooms are often not suitable, detention is not warranted, and leaving individuals in public spaces is unsafe. This gap places significant pressure on frontline resources while failing to provide individuals with timely care.

Mack:
Okay, and what are their proposed solutions for this problem?

Stephanie:
Okay, a dedicated crisis stabilization and transfer capacity, so that would be the establishment of a facility for 24-hour stabilization. Part of that also includes intake protocols for those who can't remain in public space, but do not require detention, so that kind of sounds like, to me, locking up people that are having mental health crisises and didn't commit a crime. Yup. Okay, other solutions, reduced system bottlenecks and improved frontline capacity, a more focused and responsive crisis intervention model, and stronger alignment with the justice system.

Mack:
Okay, so a lot of these Sound like actually not municipal things to me.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
They sound like provincial and maybe even federal, if we're talking about the justice system, responsibilities, and I think I saw some initial reaction from councillors to this document basically saying the same thing.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Like, "What are you advocating to us for, when a lot of what you're asking for is not our responsibility?" We don't have the authority necessarily, certainly not the funding to provide these things, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah, basically, especially this stuff, and it's a lot of just Like, one of their solutions is just reduced on-scene wait times for officers and responders. It's like, okay.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
We'll get right on that." Like, I don't know. Yeah.

Mack:
All right. What do you make of this overall strategy? Why bring this forward now, do you think?

Stephanie:
I, you know what? I'm actually not sure. I'm guessing it has something to do with the budget. Like, this totally seems like something before an election, but obviously that just happened. I'm guessing it has something to do with budget, but, like, there's really not much in the budget that, like, we were just saying that the city can do. I honestly just, I hesitated on even including this in the episode. All it's saying is that people feel uncomfortable seeing visible poverty and mental health issues, and we should give more money to the police and maybe improve addiction care. That's not news. People have been saying that forever. And really, the thing is like…

Mack:
Broken record here.

Stephanie:
Exactly. And a lot of this report actually doesn't even It's very open with defining the issue as not actually criminal. Disorder and unpredictable behavior is, for the most part, not a crime. A person having a mental health crisis is not a crime. Obviously, smoking drugs in the LRT station, that is a crime, or at least it's…

Mack:
In violation of the bylaws.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
But, like, it's not like this is going They're not trying to address assaults.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
They're just trying to address seeing, like, destitute people.

Mack:
Right. This isn't even about necessarily the perception of safety. It's just about the people that you see if you come downtown and walk around.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Right? Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. And then just, another thing on open air use. I was just thinking, like, is there anything that we could do to prevent people from using drugs in transit stations? Like, I was thinking if there was some sort of site where they could consume drugs, like, maybe under supervision. They could call it, like…

Mack:
A safe place? Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie:
They could call it, like, a supervised consumption site. Do you think anyone's thought of that?

Mack:
I don't think so. No.

Stephanie:
Like, this is the answer. Like, if…

Mack:
And…

Stephanie:
You want to stop people from consuming drugs in LRT stations, you've gotta give them another place to consume their drugs. And there, that is not mentioned in this article or in this document at all.

Mack:
Right. And the context here in the province is that we have two remaining sites in Edmonton, one in Lethbridge, one in Grande Prairie, one in Calgary. They're all slated to close, except for these Edmonton and Grande Prairie ones. We're just not sure when. But the Calgary ones are closing here right away. It's only a matter of time, I think, until the province decides to close the ones here as well, and that would leave us with zero of these supervised consumption sites, safe consumption sites. But you're absolutely right. If we don't want it to happen over here, let's provide a place for it to happen. And I think this goes across the board. It's not just about drug use. It's about some of that disorder that people see as well.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
It's like, if you gotta use the bathroom, and there's no bathroom to go to, guess what? They're just gonna use the bathroom out in the open. And I've seen people do this downtown. It's getting marginally better, right? With the opening of Odaeman Park. There are washrooms there. They're staffed. The opening of the renovation of Beaverhills House Park on 105th Street in Jasper. There are bathrooms there. They are also staffed. Like, there are starting to be a few more options for people there. But what about if you wanna stay warm, or you wanna escape the rain or the snow, or any of those kinds of things? If there isn't a place for people to go, they're gonna do it on the street.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So we've gotta provide options.

Stephanie:
Or you just wanna hang out with your friends that are also going through something really hard. That's what…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
A lot of these people are doing. They're hanging out and they don't have a place to do it.

Mack:
I think about this problem a lot, being someone who lives downtown and sees it all the time. And top of my list for interventions are not the things that this document suggests. It's not giving more money to police. But I think there are some tangible things that could be done that would make a big difference. Public washrooms is near the top of my list, making sure there's more of those. Safe consumption sites, obviously. But also, there are some things the city could do. Getting rid of the horribly designed LRT station entrances that are admittedly quite old now, around particular Bay Enterprise Square and Central LRT stations, I think would have a huge impact. A lot of the disorder that happens around those areas is because you have these horrible old entrances that provide a bathroom and a respite from the cold. And so, that's what people do. They hang out there. And then, it's not pleasant to go through as, you know, a commuter trying to use transit. Do something about those entrances. The businesses would be happy about that too. You know, there's those kinds of things. Construction is a big challenge, and I don't think people always equate construction and this perception of disorder. But it's a little bit of broken windows theory.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Some psychology here, right? It's like, it doesn't look like we care about this place. And when it doesn't look like we care about it makes it easier for other people who come to also not care about it, right? I think this is a big problem. And it's unfortunate. Like, we need to build this LRT. We're gonna, it's gonna be great to have this LRT go all the way to the west. But in the meantime, it does create a lot of these conditions that do not help the situation. If they don't do anything to harm it, at least they do not help it, right? We've talked about the other things in other parts of the downtown on the show before. Get rid of that bridge that goes into Chinatown. Create That creates that awful separation. You know, there's lots of things that are within the city's purview that we could do, but we have here a advocacy organization advocating to the city to do things that are actually the province's responsibility. It's frustrating. What did the What Has the province commented on this at all? Because I think they sort of addressed this to everybody, even though their focus seemed to be on municipal leaders.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Basically, it's still pretty early, but the A statement from a spokesperson with the Ministry of Mental Health and Addiction said it's reviewing the report, but it looks like it kind of aligns with work that's already underway. Quote, "Their goals are our government's goals, to make Downtown Edmonton a safe place to live, work, and enjoy public spaces." So.

Mack:
So, we just disagree about how to go about accomplishing that goal, essentially.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Well, I think the best thing I can say about this report is that it maybe had been admittedly a little bit of time since downtown safety or the perception of downtown safety was in the news. So the DRC exists to help make sure there's attention put onto these important issues. Anytime we get an opportunity to reeducate people about what are some of the root causes here, how might we address this, have that conversation, I suppose that's a positive thing. Even though, like I said, we might disagree on the specific solutions that are gonna impact here. Okay. So this report came out. What's next? Where does this go?

Stephanie:
I don't know. It's I don't know if I'm just out of the loop, but it was literally so random. I don't understand. I'm guessing, like I said, that it has something to do with like a budget ask, but maybe around November, the coalition will point to this and be like, "Hey, remember when we just asked for more money for police? Can you do that?"

Mack:
Yeah. To your point about the budget, I did see in the CBC reporting about this. Cheryl Watson, who's the chair of the Recovery or of the Revitalization Coalition, basically said that, you know, they want administration to look at some things like, for example, REACH, which is a crisis support team that the city funds. And so, maybe it's about, you know, shifting some of those dollars in some ways, to other things. But again, like, we already have a police funding formula. That's not really in question. You know, a lot of the things that they're asking for actually need to be funded by the province and the federal government. So, we'll see how far this actually goes. All right. Our final item today is about RE/MAX Field and the Edmonton Riverhawks, which we talked about on the show a few weeks ago. You were helping us understand, Stephanie, that, there's gonna be some changes to that parking lot. And, we got an email, actually.

Stephanie:
Which is a generous term. Parking lot, generous term.

Mack:
Yeah, generous term.

Stephanie:
Mud pit.

Mack:
We got an email from the Riverhawks who listened to that episode and had a little bit of feedback for us, a little bit of clarification. So, I just wanted to highlight a few of those things. So, one of them is, you and I were talking about, how do they fit 2,500 cars in that parking lot? That doesn't seem right. And it turns out that they actually have two additional parking lots to the west of the ballpark. And they expect to have an overflow lot further west that they're working on and which should be finalized shortly. So, they actually have quite a lot of capacity for parking that we didn't recognize when we were talking about this item. I'm surprised actually at how much parking lots they have around there. They said, quote, "Our parking team takes it as a challenge to fill each lot as safely and efficiently as possible so we will still have a decent amount of surface parking lot parking, in 2027 and beyond." So, this is, I think, trying to head off concern that you're all gonna have to take the shuttle to get down there…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
When this, housing stuff goes ahead. But they do think that, you know, that shuttle service will have a big impact. They said it'll go a long way to mitigate the inconvenience caused by the loss of that parking lot. And I love this. They said, "We will no longer have to worry about a parking lot that we fondly refer to as a mud bowl after rainy weather." All right. So, that's the update we got. Thank you for the clarifications to the…

Stephanie:
Yep.

Mack:
To Jeff and Steve and everybody over at the Riverhawks. But this was also back at council this week, right? Or at least the river crossing project that's related to this.

Stephanie:
Yeah, definitely. So, we talked about this a little while ago. Basically, administration was asking for the green light to go ahead with the first phase of the river crossing community redevelopment at a cost of $15 million. Council said, "Yep, go ahead." And just a reminder, this will see the construction or rehabilitation of the roads north of Remax Field and the first steps towards housing development on that parking area. So, they're gonna be, servicing, subdividing, selling those lots, and they're expecting up to 300 units of medium to high density housing to be built there. And yeah, like we said So, in this in the first conversation, they didn't really talk about the Riverhawks that much, but this week, they did talk about it a little bit more. They talked about how, like we said, Riverhawks will trial a park-and-ride this season to prepare for that loss of parking. They admin also said that they're looking at micro-mobility and active transportation solutions. I honestly don't know how much better I love getting there with micro-mobility or, my own bike. I've done both, and it's, like, amazing. Like, what could possibly be better than riding a little Lime down to the in the beautiful, warm air, in the, in the verdant green?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Like, ugh, I love going, taking active transportation to the Remax Field. But anyways, I don't know how much better they could make it unless they, like, took out the hills that make it hard to bike up and down.

Mack:
Sure, yeah. Or better parking for scooters or something like that.

Stephanie:
It does get pretty congested with scooter parking right out front. I have noticed that.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
So, maybe Yeah, maybe that's something that they're looking at. And then, they are working to figure out that park-and-ride as well. Yeah.

Mack:
Okay. And then I see here that Coun. Stevenson introduced a subsequent motion.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So basically, her idea was Okay, so we've got this park-and-ride in the works for the Riverhawks. We've got the ticket surcharge at Commonwealth Stadium. So, if there's any, event at Commonwealth Stadium, there's a ticket surcharge, which means that you can use that ticket to ride the bus for free to Commonwealth Stadium, and then Rogers Place doesn't really have any of those things. So, what she just wanted to know was can you outline the existing transit support provided to major venues, including park-and-ride programs, ticket-to-ride and shuttles. And then, just to kind of see, like, what's going on. Can we make it all just kind of standard? And then the other thing is to outline a short-term and long-term parking and transportation strategy for Remax Field.

Mack:
I think this is really interesting. I mean, they're not the same, these venues, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So, we really don't want to have people parking in the residential areas surrounding Commonwealth Stadium. And so, it makes sense that it's basically a no-drive venue. You have to take trans or some other mode to get there. Rogers Place, very different. Like, we have an LRT station right there. Lots of people use micro-mobility. Like, in the playoffs at least…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
There are tons of scooters clogging up the bike lane around Rogers Place and Ice District, but there's also like 80,000 parking stalls within a 10-minute walk. So, if you wanna drive and you're willing to pay, there's no shortage of options…

Stephanie:
And people do.

Mack:
At Rogers Place, right? And people do. So, it's quite a bit different than Commonwealth Stadium. And then Remax Field, again, it's quite a bit smaller, but also skews more residential, kind of like Stadium. And so I'm interested to see the memo and what this brings back. Although, my initial reaction is that they shouldn't all necessarily be the same, just because of the different geographic context around each one.

Stephanie:
Hmm, good point. Yeah, I don't I guess Stevenson wasn't necessarily calling for, "Make it all exactly the same."

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
She just wants an outline. I want to say one more thing about this, and hear me out, but, like, the I see a lot of similarity between the River Hawks and Happy Bier Street, especially Happy Bier Street, 70 Great Ave, which is like the Shiddy's, Monolith, that, like, little node. And the reason why is because, like, go five or so years ago, go to both of those areas, nothing was really going on there. It wasn't really super popular. And now because two really awesome things have emerged, the RiverHawks, which has become, like, such an amazing asset to Edmonton, so much fun for so, such good value for the experience, money-wise and then also all of those breweries down in that area, and now the city kind of has to, like, go back and add all this infrastructure to, help address these, like, everyone wants to go there, so they're like, "Oh my gosh, we need to, like, make it feasible to go there." In the RiverHawks case, there's a million cars trying to get there and, there's, like, not much parking. And they're also doing neighborhood renewal there, so they're trying to make the sidewalks better. In the case with the Happy Bier Street, they're building a bike lane to go there. There's no sidewalks there currently, so you, they're, you know, building active transportation solutions there. So, I don't know, kind of a weird analogy, but those are two places that are kind of are having similar growing pains right now.

Mack:
Almost like we should be investing in areas that are driven by community and market demand rather than trying to create those conditions like we have down in the Quarters, for example.

Stephanie:
Yep, that's I was thinking about that the other day, yep.

Mack:
Okay, I see there's one other piece of Rossdale news here too.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so I was just gonna say that the city has opened up public engagement on neighborhood renewal, like I was saying. Nothing too crazy proposed, nothing at all like Wîhkwêntôwin, which, for example, they are proposing to, like, close, fully close some streets, adding all these new bike lanes. Rossdale's is much more, like, closer to like-for-like but we will have more information on that in Friday's Pulse. So go, if you would, or if you, if it moves you go give your engagement on that.

Mack:
Okay, well, that's our episode for this week. We will be back again next week with more news and information about City Council, but I guess this podcast also starts to follow the Oilers a little bit more closely. And so we'll probably talk a bit about that. We should know, have we won maybe one or two or three games, maybe, by the time hopefully…

Stephanie:
Yeah, something like that.

Mack:
Our next episode comes around? I can see you're ready. You're just ready to go.

Stephanie:
I'm so ready. Ah! No, I can Wait, do you hear that? Oh, it's the bandwagon coming along. My ride's here. Gotta go. No shame. No shame.

Mack:
Well, I hope it warms up enough for me to keep the, balcony door open because I love hearing It's kind of like an early warning system. We hear Rob Place erupting the horn and everything before I see it on the television. Like, there's a bit of a delay, so it's like you can prepare for it. But it's a bit too cold to leave the door open at the moment. So we'll see.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah.

Mack:
By the time the first round gets going here. We'll be back next week. Thanks for listening. Until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.