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Council opposes smaller lots

City council has opted to leave residential lot sizes as is for now, despite requests by some homebuilders to allow smaller lots in St. Albert. Members of council recently went behind closed doors to review lot mix ratios in St.

City council has opted to leave residential lot sizes as is for now, despite requests by some homebuilders to allow smaller lots in St. Albert.

Members of council recently went behind closed doors to review lot mix ratios in St. Albert, a report that has now been made public.

According to Mayor Nolan Crouse, the report lists a number of downsides with reducing lot size, which ultimately led council to leave the issue untouched for now.

“By remaining silent means we are going to leave it the way it is,” said Crouse.

“The house prices don’t come down simply because you have smaller lots. Cost was one factor, but there is several reasons in that report not to do it.”

The city adopted its first land use bylaw in 1979, which outlined regulations for the width of lots for both existing and new neighbourhoods.

Since then, the bylaw has been updated on a handful of occasions — the most recent in July 2005, when provisions were added that allowed a wider range of lot sizes (between 10 metre and 11.5 metres wide).

The changes were made after a request for allowing narrow single-family lots was submitted by both the Urban Development Institute (UDI) and the former St. Albert affordable housing advisory board.

Pierre Sareault is the sales manager for Reid Built Homes, and chairman of the residential think tank committee, a joint marketing initiative between the city and industry.

He said developers aren’t necessarily pushing for smaller lots, but would like to make changes to the current ratio in order to create more options for affordability.

“The goal is to maintain St. Albert’s reputation of single-family ownership, but also implement a realm of affordability,” said Sareault. “It’ll create less expensive land.”

According to the lot mix ratios report, narrow lot development, meaning lots less than 11.5 metres in width, is a relatively new phenomenon in St. Albert.

In the past four years, the city approved a total of 121 narrow lots, mainly in North Ridge. So far only 20 per cent of the approved narrow lots have resulted in construction, and about half of those registered lots remain vacant.

The report, however, points out narrow lots don’t significantly change the affordability of a house unless there is a smaller house built upon the lot.

A fiscal impact analysis of eight different lot mix scenarios was conducted in 2009. What was found is the narrow lots provide less return to the municipality, whereas the large lots provide nearly double the amount per capita.

It also states smaller lots provide the greatest challenge to city services and maintenance of those services. Other downsides include problems with snow removal, fire access and fire spread, and site coverage.

The report will be referred for feedback to the residential think tank, UDI and the Canadian Home Builders Association-Edmonton Region.

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