EDMONTON - Vancouver has been so successful at attracting families back to the central neighbourhoods that it had to build new schools.
With land so costly, the city and school board had to get inventive. They decided to build new schools adjacent to public parks and let the kids use the parks for recess.
This city can certainly learn from Vancouver’s success at bringing brought families back to central old communities.
More than 100,000-plus people, including 9,000 children, now live in central areas, says Larry Beasley, former head of the Vancouver planning department. That’s up from 37,000 in the mid-1990s.
Under 1992 guidelines, new towers in key central communities were encouraged to have 25 per cent family-size units. (Edmonton recently set a similar target for some large developments in older neighbourhoods.)
Townhouses were required around the base of highrise units and there had to be play space for kids on the ground or terraces.
The planning department hired a child advocate to ensure child friendly facilities were part of developments.
“Then the city had to get committed and I was talking about this all the time in the 1990s,” recalls Beasley.
Edmonton developer Armin Preiksaitis says this city is making some strides in bringing families back into older neighbourhoods but its going to take some work.
Two major projects, West Rossdale, near the legislature grounds, and the Airport Lands (proposed population 30,000), north of downtown, are both major opportunities to provide family friendly housing in central Edmonton, he says.
It will only work where there are family facilities like parks, tot lots, daycares and a significant number of children close by, he says.
Preiksaitis says another way to keep families in older communities is to build highrises for seniors ready to leave their homes. That frees up their houses for young couples.
That’s what he’s proposed near Westmount mall this fall, though the community expressed much unhappiness, fearing that highrise development drives families away.
Meanwhile, the city also needs to re-think how schools are built in higher density areas, Preiksaitis says. Schools could be embedded right in the housing development, as is done in Europe. Land devoted to school yards could be shared, he added.
Ideally, “you want to align city’s family housing and where schools will be,” he added.
Good point, says city councillor Don Iveson.
Schools are a critical issues and Edmonton has to find a ways to keep some open in mature neighbourhoods, — though the school board has a final say, he says.
“A school is a big reason to choose a neighbourhood. A lot of people say they’d love to move into an older neighbourhood but you can’t count on the school.”
“If we could guarantee that some schools would stay open in certain neighbourhoods, we could concentrate development there.”
That kind of recommendation could come out of mayor’s taskforce on sustainable communities headed by former city councillor Michael Phair. Both school boards are represented on the committee which is looking at ways to keep some schools open and find new uses for old schools.
The public school board is so concerned with the negative impact of school closures on older communities that it put a two-year moratorium on new closures. There’s one year left for their review.
Former city councillor Jim Taylor says not many kids grow up in highrises in Edmonton these days. It’s just not the culture.
But in retrospect, the city made a mistake in 1998 when it established the incentive policy to get housing into the downtown – it didn’t require any family-size units, he said.
“It was an oversight, we were just desperate to get things moving. We left out families and clerical workers,” said Taylor.
“But that’s changing, I think we have a younger generation that’s not as interested in the suburbs.”
Downtown already has lots of amenities like bike paths, easy access to the river, recreation facilities. The trick is getting larger housing units, he says.
“We are not yet leading the parade, we are catching up.”
Edmonton has no plans to outlaw adult-only buildings, says Jeff Price, director of development in the city’s sustainable development department (formerly planning department). That issue is provincial jurisdiction.
Nor does the city keep track of how many adult-only buildings have gone up in the last decade, in the new towers downtown and pushing into central communities, he added.
After the developer puts the age restriction in place, it is very difficult to change, says lawyer Robert Noce, a specialist on condo law.
In a condominium, a board seeking to change the age restriction must have approval from 75 per cent of the owners. As well, voting is weighted for “a unit factor” — those who own larger units or more units get more say over the decision, he said.
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