Coming Up: Sept 21
Council meets on Tuesday. The most significant items on our agenda:
Alberta Health Services
Sunrise House
Municipal Census
Stone Ridge Re-zoning
College Park Area Redevelopment Plan
Following is more information and my take on agenda items.
As always, any mistakes or opinions belong to me and me alone, not to Council or City staff.
While I express my current views below, I work hard to go into meetings ready to listen and with an open mind. I learn new information and participate in debate. This always informs, and sometimes changes, how I vote on issues.
If you would like to watch the meeting or read any of its supporting material for yourself, you can do so by clicking here. The City will post the highlights of Council’s decisions here.
ALBERTA HEALTH SERVICES
Alberta Health Services will be sending a delegation to answer Council questions about local health care and COVID-19 response. I appreciate this opportunity to get more information to inform our decision making and the community. As with all Council discussions, you can watch this here.
SUNRISE HOUSE
Sunrise House is a Youth Emergency Shelter. It does not just provide a place to be for youth experiencing houselessness. It also provides counselling and other supports, a family reunification program for youth with a safe family to return to, and transitional housing support for youth who need to find an independent place to live.
Sunrise House is currently operating out of a building built in the 1970’s which was not designed with its current use in mind. The organisation is currently working towards a new build that will better serve the needs of its clients. Sunrise House has land in Kensington (south of Winners, west of 116th Ave) to build on, but the shape and timing of development out there is creating challenges. So on Tuesday, Sunrise House will be asking to swap this land with the City so that it can build on City owned land in Gateway.
Sunrise House is a vital organisation in our community. Youth experiencing houselessness deserve care. Additionally, over 55% of folks who are chronically houseless in Grande Prairie report that they first experienced houselessness as a child or youth. Getting houseless youth stable and healthy is the best way to reduce chronic houselssness in the future. I’ve also never had neighbours of Sunrise House complain to me about impacts it has had on their property.
The Gateway land is in much closer proximity to high schools, the college, jobs, and transit. To me, it seems like a much better place for Sunrise House than Kensington.
This proposal seems like good idea to me. However, I do not think that Council should make this decision without hearing from the community and considering any ideas or concerns are raised. My hope for tomorrow is that Council directs Administration to undertake community consultation about this potential location for Sunrise House. I would then like to see this proposal brought back to Council for further consideration.
CENSUS
Historically, the City has conducted a census every two years. The last one was conducted in 2018. You can see the results here.
Council opted not to do the census in 2020. Now it is being proposed that Council cancel its census process all together.
The two big reasons for this recommendation:
Historically, municipal census numbers were used to calculate provincial per capita grants. The province has changed course and will no longer be accepting municipal population numbers, so a census no longer helps with grant funding.
A census costs approximately $200,000 to run. Cancelling the census will save money.
In my opinion, cancelling the census might be a good policy. But it is also a big decision. Seeing how our demographics and neighbourhoods change over time is important context for many decisions. I don’t know what kind of impact losing the census will have on research and decisions in our community. I also do not know whether or not the information it collects can be accurately derived from other sources.
I’m not fundamentally opposed to cancelling the census. But I think this decision deserves more context and discussion than Council has had so far. That means I’m likely to vote “no” to this recommendation.
STONE RIDGE
Stone Ridge is the development south of 68 Ave, directly across from the Eastlink Centre and Community Knowledge Campus. Council is considering a proposal to rezone a piece of land within it. This land is currently designated as Medium Density Residential. The proposal is to rezone it to General Commercial to accommodate professional and medical offices.
Picture taken from this staff report.
Within the city, there are many pieces of vacant land zoned for multi-family developments. They have gone undeveloped due to lack of market demand. For the most part, I’ve been open to re-zoning them when someone wishes to build on the land.
However, in my mind, this land is different. It is right across from the Community Knowledge Campus, which represents hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer investments to build community recreational and educational facilities. I want people to be able to live near it. And I want people of various income levels to live near it, which means multi-family land is key.
I understand that there might not be a lot of demand for multi-family development in our community right now. But in the future, there could be. And if that happens, having adequate land for it near the Community Knowledge Campus is important.
I’ve got a number of questions to ask about this proposal, including how it changes population projections for the area. So I don’t know whether or not I will support it. But going into debate: I do have reservations about it.
The City has many pieces of vacant land zoned for multi-family developments. They have gone undeveloped due to lack of market demand. For the most part, I’ve been open to re-zoning them when someone wishes to build on the land.
However, in my mind, this land is different. It is right across from the Community Knowledge Campus, which represents hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer investments to build community recreational and educational facilities. I want people to be able to live near it. And I want people of various income levels to live near it, which means multi-family land is key.
I understand that there might not be a lot of demand for multi-family development in our community right now. But in the future, there could be. And if that happens, having adequate land for it near the Community Knowledge Campus is important. I am unlikely to support this proposal.
COLLEGE PARK
College Park is an interesting neighbourhood, with houses from many different decades. It is also a neighbourhood which has low density, aging infrastructure, and some properties in under-repair. Which has led to Council discussing infill potential in the neighbourhood.
Development in College Park is currently driven by an Area Redevelopment Plan (ARP) dating back to 1998. One of the big goals of this ARP was to limit development to single-family dwellings. It has led to some very nice new homes getting built. But prohibiting other forms of housing as also led to low redevelopment in the neighbourhood.
It is proposed that Council pass a new College Park ARP. You can read it here.
This new ARP would allow for low and medium density multi-family residential development, not just single detached homes. At the same time, it would introduce architectural controls to help new buildings fit into the neighbourhood. It also includes calls for a number of community improvements, including entrance features and improvements to Borstad Point (the top of the toboggan hill).
Council discussed this ARP a couple meetings ago. While there seemed to be general support to pass it, there was some concern from Council. We wanted to make sure that the City was doing its part in terms of investing in public infrastructure within College Park. Council was also concerned about standards surrounding three- and four-plexes. There was concern about design standards raised, and concerns about these rental oriented housing forms displacing opportunities for home ownership within the neighbourhood.
Council directed Administration to come forward with options for Council to address its concerns. These can be found here. I look forward to discussing them on Tuesday.
That’s what is on our agenda for Monday. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
You can comment below. Or, you can contact me at dbressey@cityofgp.com or 780-402-4166. I'm happy to talk online or over the phone. I'm also always willing to setup a time to meet for coffee.
We also always have great conversation in the GP Round Table group on Facebook.
After Council meeting, you will be able to find highlights posted by the City here.
Thanks for reading!
-Dylan