If some city councillors have their way, the St. Albert of tomorrow will limit urban sprawl by building up rather than out with diverse housing choices intermixed with shopping, public transit and employment, all of which reduces the need to gas up the SUV. While many of the principles of ‘smart growth’ are admirable, the city’s research to date raises more questions than answers and seems predicated on the belief that if you plan it, hopefully they will come.
Council narrowly agreed Monday to develop a “made in St. Albert” solution to smart growth for the annexed lands. The details won’t be hashed out until March 1, however smart growth generally refers to development that limits urban sprawl by incorporating compact housing forms, often along transit routes and near neighbourhood shops and stores. Smart growth also promotes alternate forms of transportation, with wider sidewalks and trails linking neighbourhoods.
Two scenarios were developed for a fiscal analysis — a smart growth versus conventional St. Albert model. Both would consume the same amount of land, however the smart growth model would accommodate a much larger population (50,000 versus 27,000) due to higher densities. Smart growth would be cheaper to service and upkeep, but would cost more for services like police, fire, ambulance and recreation due to the higher population.
Property taxes in the smart growth scenario would be 7.8 per cent lower at full build-out thanks to a larger tax pool from more homes and businesses. While the notion of lower taxes is appealing, that rate hinges on developers finding a market for higher density apartments and street-level retail. That might be easier said than done, says the pro-development lobby Urban Development Institute (UDI), whose spokespersons noted similar developments — McKenzie Towne in Calgary and Terwillegar Towne in Edmonton — have been fiscal failures because there’s little demand for mixed-use commercial.
UDI says a market analysis is needed to find out whether smart growth will work. That level of detail was surprisingly missing from the city’s fiscal and economic reports, despite administration’s acknowledgement that stalled growth is a potential risk. A market analysis would cost more than $200,000 according to city staff, on top of the time and energy administration and consultants have put into smart growth since 2007. While certainly not cheap, failing to understand the market could be an even larger gamble. That’s a lesson the city should have learned after another well-meaning planning concept — a high-tech business park in Campbell Park — fizzled when the demand wasn’t there.
There’s no question smart growth offers an attractive urban lifestyle, but recent history warrants caution. Similar concepts were used when the city drew up plans to create a mini Whyte Avenue in the downtown. For-lease signs are now a common sight and several retail ventures have left due to inadequate traffic and population base. Neither will be in abundant supply in the raw annexed land on the city’s fringe. Other smart growth-style developments in St. Albert — the northwest urban village near Fire Hall No. 3 and the Grandin mall redevelopment — were approved with great fanfare for innovative, sustainable urban planning, but years later, zero shovels have broken ground.
Limiting sprawl is a laudable goal, but it’s important to remember what St. Albert is in a regional context: suburbia. Low-density single-family homes might not be environmentally friendly, but that’s what’s sold in St. Albert, a choice many residents have made over higher density urban settings. If St. Albert forces developers in another direction, homeowners can easily find what they want in Sherwood Park, Spruce Grove, Edmonton or Fort Saskatchewan. Council needs to find the right balance that recognizes market demand but also takes into account a clear need for housing variety to create a truly sustainable, diverse city. To do otherwise and adopt planning principles that look good on paper but are not grounded in reality, well that’s just not smart.
