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Edmonton city council has approved a rezoning that will allow a 25-storey tower in Windsor Park. Plus, Stephanie took a trip to a budget engagement session to learn what the mayor's been hearing from Edmontonians.
- (00:00) - Introduction
- (04:45) - Ad: U of A Reads
- (05:26) - Windsor Park
- (15:03) - 101 Street TPM Memo
- (19:56) - Ad: AdaptAbilities
- (20:26) - Budget engagement
- (32:17) - Community Climate Adaptation Micro Grant
- (43:29) - Close
Here are the relevant links for this episode:
Windsor Park
- Council approves rezoning for 25-storey residential tower, despite community concern
- Council approves 25-storey tower in Windsor Park neighbourhood
- May 5, 2026 - City Council - Public Hearing
101 Street TPM Memo
Budget engagement
Community Climate Adaptation Micro Grant
- Community Climate Adaptation Micro Grant
- News Release: City supports neighbourhood resilience with new climate adaptation micro grant
Award nominations
This episode is brought to you by U of A Reads from the University of Alberta. From poetry to protest, memory to motivation — U of A alumni authors unpack the forces behind their writing in candid, thought-provoking conversations. Learn more at uab.ca/reads
This episode is also brought to you by AdaptAbilities' Hearts in Action Summer Camps, which offer a supportive space to build confidence, develop skills, and form meaningful friendships through structured activities. Each day is designed to encourage participation, independence, and connection in a safe and welcoming environment. Camps run across various locations in Edmonton, Leduc, and St. Albert. Learn more
Speaking Municipally is produced by Taproot Edmonton. We deliver reliable intelligence about the Edmonton region.
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Creators and Guests
Host
What is Speaking Municipally?
Taproot Edmonton presents a weekly discussion on key stories in municipal politics. We pay attention to City Council so you don't have to! Join us as we delve into conversations about the context surrounding decisions made at City Hall.
Mack:
You have been engaged. This week, city council approved a rezoning that will allow a 25-story tower in Windsor Park.
Stephanie:
Plus, I took a trip to a budget engagement session to learn what the mayor's been hearing.
Mack:
Hi, I'm Mack.
Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.
Mack:
And we're.
Stephanie:
Speaking.
Mack:
Municipally. Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 355. No more hockey, at least not for the Edmonton Oilers.
Stephanie:
And that's the only team that matters.
Mack:
.
Stephanie:
You know, all of…
Mack:
Come on, Montreal. You can do it.
Stephanie:
Okay, true. Obviously, we're cheering for the Canadiens. Like, hello.
Mack:
Yes. Yes.
Stephanie:
Suddenly, I'm French-Canadian. Everyone, all my friends that I've talked to have been like, "Well, my wallet is really happy," and that's true. Like, honestly, I would rather be out in the first round than get all the way to game six or seven of the finals and not win, because getting all that way, you spent all that time and money, and-like liver damage to not even win the cup. Whereas this way, it's like, "Oh well, whatever."
Mack:
That's a pretty rosy way of looking at it. I think we still wanna get to the final, no? But I have also been thinking about it not just in terms of my wallet, but my calendar. I feel like…
Stephanie:
Exactly.
Mack:
There's so much more time now, you know? I kinda had mentally been preparing for hockey every other night…
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Mack:
During the playoffs. And now, it's like, if I wanna watch one of the other games, I can, but I don't feel that same sense of obligation, you know? So, there's other things you can do. And, you know, I was saying also to, Karen, our editor and co-founder this week, that I wonder what the impact will be for Edmonton because of the Oilers not being in the playoffs, and not in the way that you might expect. Because what we usually hear is, "Oh, this is bad for restaurants, and bars, 'cause all these people aren't going to the Oilers." But I'm wondering, what about all of the things that people don't do because the playoffs are on? Like, events don't take place, or people might say, "Well, we're not going out for dinner tonight, because we're gonna go out on Friday for the game." So, what's the economic impact of them not being in the playoffs? I'm sure it's smaller than having them in the playoffs, but, you know, there'there's gotta be something there. I'm very curious about what that looks like.
Stephanie:
Yeah, and like, in the past two years around this time of year, I've been to lots of arts events, and they there will be like a hastily set up TV in the corner…
Mack:
Right.
Stephanie:
With the Oilers game on. Like, I literally, I can count three events that I can remember, a fashion show that I went to in 2024, and then, the Fringe fundraiser in 2025, I believe, and then I can't remember what year it was, but like, a play, and at all of those things, people were either on their phones watching the Oilers game or watching it on a TV in the corner. So, I think it, yeah, I think that it will be a really interesting, like, I've, some other friends have been like, "The summer's not gonna feel the same without the Oilers playoffs." But another thing, though, that I wanted to mention, so next week, I'm going to go to the State of the City address. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Mayor Andrew Knack will be there. The mayor returns to the State of the City. Last year, I went as well, and I talked about it on the show, and it was around this time of year, and we were smack dab in the middle of the playoffs, and it was so bizarre, because it was supposed to be the State of the City, but it really was like the state of the Oilers, because, partway through, someone on stage said something like, "You know, if I could elect a mayor, a mayor tomorrow, the person I would elect, he like really cares about the city," all this stuff, and I'm like, "Who's he talking about?" And all of a sudden, Hunter the Lynx, the Oilers mascot, runs out and runs on stage, playing a drum, and they start throwing T-shirts from the from the stage. It was so bizarre.
Mack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
So, this year, obviously that's not gonna be there. So, I don't know, I just feel like we have this, the last two years we've been spoiled with really long playoff runs, and this year it's just gonna, we're gonna have a little bit of an identity crisis.
Mack:
There's enough time that maybe they didn't do this, but I would love to read the two versions of the speech that Andrew Knack must have prepared, right? One if we're in the playoffs, and one if we're not.
Stephanie:
So true. Yeah, that's, and I feel like many such cases, like everyone is adjusting their life around whether or not…
Mack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
The playoffs are on or off, and they're off.
Mack:
Well, we've taken a bit of time off the top to talk about hockey, but the good news for you, dear listeners, we won't talk about it anymore, because, until the next season, because they're not in the playoffs anymore. So, what have we learned? It's good for our wallets, good for our calendars, bad for restaurants, bad for TV retailers…
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Mack:
And the jury's still out on the State of the City, but you'll bring us that next week, and so we'll evaluate then.
Stephanie:
Yes.
Mack:
Okay.
Stephanie:
Exactly.
Mack:
Well, we got lots of interesting stuff to get to this week that is not hockey related. But first, 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. There are some really compelling conversations waiting for you right now. Explore the growing collection. One episode features Jordan Abel exploring the lasting impacts of residential schools, and what it means to write about contemporary indigenous experience. One episode features Lauren Ceil, sharing the deeply personal story behind her memoir on living with an eating disorder and recovery. There's also a powerful discussion with poet Gavin Bradley, unpacking the emotional weight of separation and distance. If you're curious about how very different stories take shape, and what they reveal along the way, it's definitely worth a listen. Find U of A Reads wherever you get your podcasts.
Mack:
All right, our first item this week is about Windsor Park, which we've touched on in the past, I think, but it was at public hearing this week, right? So, tell us a bit about how we got here, and what happened at council.
Stephanie:
Yeah, so Westridge Pacific's development in Windsor Park, returned to a public hearing. It was referred back to administration, over the summer when there was that real backlog of items on the public hearing, agendas. What they were proposing was a mixed, two, like two properties being zoned to different mixed-use zones. One would allow for a building up to about 25 stories tall, and that would be on Currently, there's a strip mall there with like a Circle K and, a, like a little local restaurant and a hairstylist. And then on the lot behind it, another mixed-use tower, but of a shorter size, only up to four stories tall.
Mack:
Okay. And we heard from some people for and against this. We also heard from the proponent, so Ian O'Donnell, former executive director of the Downtown Business Association, he now works for Westrich, spoke to this at public hearing and said construction could be underway by next year. They also did some math using the city's own tax uplift calculator, and they think that the uplift from this project, if it is approved, could be somewhere between 700,000 and $900,000 per year, which they called significant. You know, he touched on hearing from the community, about amenities and walkability, said they're committed to trying to find, you know, tenants like a café, even though, as we've talked about in the show of, in the past, it's really kind of out of their control and market conditions are not ideally suited to that right now. But I also thought his comments about being city builders were pretty interesting. So let's, listen to Ian talking about that.
Ian O'Donnell:
I'd like to stress that we are city-building partners. We have a proven track record on building and delivering quality product, projects, with a focus on developing near transit and in areas that are highly walkable, bikeable, and ones that provide much needed housing near major employers and post-secondary institutions. We do not land bank or sit on properties that we own, and we wanna help expedite development of these key urban sites.
Mack:
I just thought that was so interesting. He's kinda hitting on all the key things there, right, around the housing crunch, you know, urban, expectations changing around transportation, walkability, but also this very pointed, like, "We don't squat on land. Like, we're not sitting around hoping that this is gonna make us rich one day. We wanna build something, and we wanna start doing that next year." So that sounded kinda compelling to me. I don't live there, obviously, so it doesn't affect me directly, but that idea that if we approve this, it's not just gonna sit there or be a project that never happens, it actually starts next year, I think is pretty appealing.
Stephanie:
I think that based on what I've seen from Westrich, I think that I would cautiously trust that. Because when you look across the river at all of the developments around oh, not Warehouse Park, oh, Damon Park. I did a story a few months ago about how a lot of the developers in that area have kind of taken advantage of multiple incentives and amenities to really build up the housing in that area, because there's something like 2,000 new units that are gonna be going in there. There's the parks, and then, the ones from Westrich are like Lilac Park and Lotus Park, and then there's a third one on the other side of the park. So there's lots of new units going in with Westrich. And, you know, I like, I agree, they do tend to follow through on commitments to build, except I guess in that like maybe not building the exact thing, because we just talked about…
Mack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
It a few weeks ago, how they wanted to take some of the commercial out of that development they had. But I think in general, you can trust that there will be a building there. I'm not saying it's quality, I'm not saying it's affordable, I'm not saying any of that, I don't know, but I do think you can trust them to build something.
Mack:
Yes. Yeah. We can trust that this project will move forward. And we heard from some of the people who spoke in favor of this at public hearing as well, that having those amenities and having these things added to the community, even if people are opposed originally, you know, they like it later on. So what did council say?
Stephanie:
Well, council voted 12-0, and Coun. Stevenson was absent, so it was a unanimous vote. We have no way of knowing which way Coun. Anne Stevenson would have voted. But anyways, not a single councillor voted against it, which was really surprising to me. I would have totally thought that there would be at least, three or four of the kind of, the group of councillors that is emerging that tends to vote a little bit more against, density. But no, it was a unanimous, minus Stevenson, vote. I was really surprised by that.
Mack:
Maybe they were swayed by the people speaking. I don't know. You're right. Usually, there's at least a couple of people on council that oppose these really contentious ones, right? I think at the public hearing, there were nine speakers for the project, 13 against. So what are some of the things we heard from the speakers?
Stephanie:
Well, maybe I'll back up a little bit and talk a bit about another, project that went to a public hearing this week. It was in Parkview, and it was going from like your regular bungalow on a corner lot, and one of like the streets is an arterial, and it's, the, on the other side of one of the streets is commercial. So it's surrounded by roads on all sides and on, like across the street on one side, it's commercial. And it's going from a two-story-ish bungalow to a four-story mixed-use mixed use. And, that, which I objectively would have way less of an impact on a neighborhood than a 25-story tower…
Mack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
Four councillors voted against that one.
Mack:
Interesting.
Stephanie:
That like, in my humble opinion, or I even think objectively fits into the neighborhood more, because it's a four story and it's right across the street from commercial and it's on a corner lot. Whereas this Windsor Park development is like, again, objectively, like it's huge, and it is I just, it's just like so much it's such a bigger change, and I was really surprised and, that there was no one that voted against it. And, of course there were like, if there will be people that come out to oppose any rezoning, and it'll always be, parking, traffic, those will always be the first two. And I'm not being joking, facetious, like literally if you look at all the planning…
Mack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
Documents, that is always the top two.
Mack:
Right.
Stephanie:
But then also sun shadow and privacy impacts. There will always be people complaining about that. But, like, the people at the Windsor Park one were making really good arguments talking about how, like, getting out of the alleyway would involve, you would have to, it's like really difficult to get out of that alleyway and onto the arterial road. It's unsafe. But again, no one voted against it and it was really surprising.
Mack:
Hmm. We heard from residents about those concerns that you have mentioned always happen, right, obviously. Parking and everything. But I think the scale and the height of this one was of particular concern for people, right?
Stephanie:
Yeah. Exactly, because again, like I said, it's up to 25 stories and around 300 units. Yes, it's on the outside of the neighborhood, but it is also, it's on like the south side, so that means that the shadow is gonna go across like the whole entire neighborhood.
Mack:
One of the residents that I listened to a little bit of this public hearing. One of the residents I heard was John Collier who lives in the area, has talked at council about this and other things in the past, and he mentioned about that height. Actually, I think the mayor asked him about the scale and what he thought about that, and his argument was really interesting to me. He basically said that he prefers a taller tower because it means they can make the podium smaller, which he feels has less of an impact for people in the community, less of an impact on in terms of shadowing and things like that, which I thought was a really interesting argument. You don't usually hear that, right? He also talked about how, you know, it will bring these amenities to the community that they don't currently have right there, you know, talking specifically about a cafe and to promote the walkability of the area, which of course Ian O'Donnell touched on as well in his remarks. You know, and he talked a bit about the height in a, in a different way. So here's one of the things that John said.
John Collier:
I mean, if you're gonna build it anywhere, this is the place. Like, you're next to the health sciences, the university. You're next to the biggest transit station in the city. I mean, eh, where else are you gonna build this, if not here?
Mack:
I feel like this is probably the argument that council had in its head when they made this choice, right? Which is just that, yeah, it's a tall tower, but this is the place to do it, and we've got to approve these ones when they come up. Otherwise, none of them will get built, right? I mean, that's hopefully what they were thinking.
Stephanie:
Yeah, that is basically what I heard in a lot of the closing arguments that, yeah, it's right by the university, it's right by the hospital, many transit lines.
Mack:
Okay, well, I think we will just now have to wait and see, right? If it pans out the way that proponents in Westrich hope it will, construction could begin next year and so we'll have to circle back to this one, Stephanie, and see what it looks like in the end.
Stephanie:
It'll probably go to the Edmonton Design Committee maybe next and we can get like a look at how this will affect the skyline south of the river.
Mack:
La Porta.
Stephanie:
Right, like looking south.
Mack:
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, second item we wanna talk about this week is a little bit of an update on something we've been talking about over the last month or two, transit priority measures, and specifically the dedicated bus lanes down 101st Street. And so I see this week that we have a memo from administration which gives us a little bit of information. What did we learn, Stephanie?
Stephanie:
Yeah, we've talked about this a lot, and especially the data and research that supported its installation and the lack thereof that supported its removal maybe. Yeah, so the city released a batch of council memos. To explain what that is, you know, often councillors will request a memo on, "Hey, can you just quickly send some information over about X, Y, Zed?" Or sometimes it'll be administration sending information that it thinks council needs to know. And they get, released in batches every couple of months as, you know, a form of transparency. Lauren Boothby can be in part to thank about that because she keeps pushing every couple months. She's like, "Why haven't you posted them yet?" So shout out Lauren.
Mack:
Yes. And I would say in general we don't like memos, right? Like, it's better than administration just having a verbal conversation to answer a councillor's question, but it's not as good as a council report, which is released publicly on a schedule, that we have time to review it. This, you know, having to chase, that Lauren and other reporters, you do, to get these memos is not ideal, but I guess it's better than not having the information at all.
Stephanie:
Yeah. And, you know, the whole, the whole point about it being at a certain time is actually really relevant to this conversation, so anyways, this one is from March 16th, which is about a week and a half or so before the whole conversation about transit priority measures and all that, the Chinatown bus lane happened. Quote, "Since implementation of the bus lanes on 101 Street from Kingsway to 107 A Avenue in the fall of 2025, overall on-time performance for Route 9 has improved notably, increasing from 72% to 77% on weekdays, 59% to 72% on Saturdays, and 79% to 87% on Sundays." so you might be thinking those are great numbers. However, one thing I noticed is that as far as I can tell, there's no bus lane on the weekends, so the biggest improvement, you know, from 59 to 72 and then 79 to 87 could not be attributed to the southbound dedicated transit lane.
Mack:
Yeah, there was the 24-hour restriction on the northbound lane, but the restrictions on the southbound lane were only on weekdays, and so, yeah, that percentage change, 72 to 77, is quite a bit smaller than the weekends. The memo says that these improvements are partially attributed to, service hours added to the route, new bus lanes, you know, there's a variety of factors. One of the issues I have with this memo is that it lacks the specificity needed to really understand the impact here. For example, like, why are you giving this information about the weekend if that had nothing to do with the restrictions? Also, the Route 9 is a long route. Are we talking about on-Are we talking about on-time performance for the whole route? Just for that section? Can we get the data just for 101st Street? Like, there's just not enough specificity in this memo for me to really go one way or the other. And I guess maybe that's why when this did come to Council, as you pointed out, a couple weeks after the memo was released, or a week after, so Council would have had this memo already when they made that decision, was based less on data and more on, as I said on the show before, more on emotion, right, responding to anger from the businesses rather than actual evidence.
Stephanie:
Also, one more thing about evidence. Do you remember something that happened in fall of 2025 that might have impacted people taking the bus, maybe between the ages of five to 17 years old? Teacher strike? Like, I feel like this data…
Mack:
Hmm, I forgot about the teacher strike, but you're right, yeah.
Stephanie:
Yeah, I feel like, you know, obviously Victoria School is right there, like right where the bus lane is.
Mack:
Right.
Stephanie:
And then also, I'm sure there's tons of other school I know there's tons of other schools also along that bus route, so I don't know, it's a bit I don't know, this data's kind of It's a little bit less useless than the anec-data from the restaurants. But it, what I thought was interesting is that, you know, this came to The councillors had this before making the decision even though there was, you know, kind of the idea among councillors that there wasn't enough data to make this decision, so I don't know.
Mack:
Well, unless they're speaking to what we are too, the lack of specificity here, just not enough detail to really understand what the data means, right? So, hopefully we'll get proper data, not just a memo, in the future, and I'm sure this'll get evaluated again. All right, moving along. We got a couple more items, but first, we have another ad for you.
Stephanie:
This episode is brought to you by AdaptAbilities, which has opened registration for its Hearts in Action summer camps. Hearts in Action is for children, youth, and young adults with disabilities. The program offers a supportive space to build confidence, develop skills, and form meaningful friendships. Each day is designed to encourage participation, independence, and connection in a safe and welcoming environment. Camps run in Edmonton, St. Albert, and Leduc. Learn more at adaptabilities.ca. That's adaptabilities.ca.
Mack:
As you might have heard, from this podcast and elsewhere, there's a big four-year budget coming up in the fall.
Stephanie:
What?
Mack:
And so the city has been doing engagement about that. Remind us what they have been doing to hear from residents.
Stephanie:
Yeah, so there was an online survey open, it closed on the 1st, but they were also holding in-person budget engagement sessions in every single ward, so I visited, I visited the very last one in Ward sipiwiyiniwak. Mayor Andrew Knack has been at almost all of them, and I hung around and kinda listened in on people talking to him, and then when it was my turn, I snuck in and grabbed a quick interview. I'm talking really fast in it, because I felt really guilty for taking time away from, like, real constituents, but I thought it was an interesting little interview, and so here's what he's had to say about what he's heard at the engagement sessions so far. Okay, what have you been hearing so far? Just…
Andrew Knack:
L…
Stephanie:
Very, in the last month, very high level.
Andrew Knack:
Literally everything you could imagine, right? We've been talking about, how the city's growing, we've been talking about infill, we'll talk about roads, we talk about bike lanes, we talk about core services. It is, it has genuinely been, like, as I'm sure you've seen even just these range of Post-it notes, I've been now to almost every single one of these sessions, and it's been just a wide variety of different topics, which I'm actually really excited about, 'cause it then lets people see that there's I think sometimes everyone gets caught up in their echo chambers or their Facebook page group, and this is the first chance people maybe get to see different voices.
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andrew Knack:
And so I, there's been no singular theme. It has literally been across the board, and I've loved it.
Stephanie:
Well, I've been eavesdropping on…
Andrew Knack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
All the conversations so far…
Andrew Knack:
Yeah. Exactly.
Stephanie:
As a journalist, but it's like every single one, you've come away kind of agreeing, right? No matter what you're talking about…
Andrew Knack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
You come around going, "Okay, thank you very much." And it's not…
Andrew Knack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
It's like kind of a nice thing in this day and age to see people not so divided, you know?
Andrew Knack:
Well, and I think it's a reminder of why engagement like this is so important, right? We stopped this in COVID. We got scared of the public, because there's more toxicity now, right? It is the reality, but if you set up the engagement in a thoughtful way, you can generally still have a tough conversation, and even when we don't agree, yesterday I was having a lot of chats with folks in Counselor Tang's ward, and, you know, we were passionate, fiery about a couple of things, but at the end, they're like, "We're glad you actually came out, you took a listen." We ended up finding one area where we agreed even if we disagreed on five other areas, but even the fact that we agreed on one was like, oh, maybe things aren't as divided as it's portrayed to be. That's the point of doing these sessions.
Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. I also heard when I was eavesdropping that this is, last time you used to only do engagement once the budget was already built.
Andrew Knack:
Yeah.
Stephanie:
And now it's kind of part of the results-based budgeting, zero-based budgeting, whatever you wanna call it, to do this.
Andrew Knack:
Yes.
Stephanie:
Is that correct? So, yeah, tell me a bit more about how that's different.
Andrew Knack:
Yeah, I mean, really, it's actually gathering feedback at the start to help inform the decisions we're going to make, right? I've done this for 12 years, and for 12 years we would do the budget, we would do public engagement well after administration had released their draft budget already. And by that point in time, it is hard to make significant change. It is much better to say, "At this point, the budget is nowhere close to complete. Administration's working on it." We've got such interesting feedback. That board, the voting board, has been really fascinating in every one of these sessions I've attended, which is almost all of them, because it is more split than I would've thought, and so this was about getting that feedback, challenging people to think a bit differently, putting people maybe in the shoes, like, you know, we've had some people do the online tool and say, like, "Boy, this is, like, I don't, I don't like these, this trade-off conversation." Like, yeah, neither do I.
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Andrew Knack:
And now you get to see it a little bit differently, and it, and it forces people to think a little differently on it, and that's the point of starting it early, as we did.
Stephanie:
Mm-hmm. Now-You know, the budget is gonna have to be, like, you know, X amount to snow clearing, X amount to 10x amount to police, blah.
Andrew Knack:
Yep.
Stephanie:
But is, are you hearing any ideas from the public that are, like, actually novel? Does that question make sense? Like…
Andrew Knack:
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think this, these engagement sessions were a little different, that we weren't wanting to dig into specific program X yet. This is about, what are your values? What do you want to see invested in? What areas are you like, "This isn't really a priority to me"? And then use that to help shape the next layer of work. And this is sort of following council's iterative process on the budget, right? Next month is our trade-off conversations, where our city manager is going to go and say, "Hey, we've got these things that are, that we think we should stop doing because they're not aligned with those four priorities. Are you willing to do it?" And if the answer is yes, then that's gonna allow us to then get that much more focus than we did in the past.
Mack:
Thanks for bringing us that, interview, Stephanie. Wow, it sounded loud there. There was, sounds like there was a lot of people in the room?
Stephanie:
Yeah. So, kind of the meta layer to this is that apparently there's this big competition among all the councillors to see who had the most people at their budget engagement sessions. I won't say which ward was which, but apparently there's been as low as seven people and as high as 60. And this one had around 30 to 40 in sipiwiyiniwak and this was on the last, what ended up being the last Oilers game. Sorry we mentioned sports again, but there was so many people in jerseys there. And people were, you know, going there probably before the Oilers game, and there were lots of people there, and they were talking to both Mayor Knack and Coun. Parmar, who was there, and amongst each other, which was really nice.
Mack:
Yeah, really interesting. Well, as you could hear there, the mayor sounds like he was in his element, right? We know that Mayor Knack is nothing if not willing to give someone the time of day to listen to them, right? Like, he will engage with everyone. So this is right up his alley, and I don't think his ability to listen to people ahead of the budget was ever in question for me. I think what remains to be seen is how effective he is at managing the budget discussions when we get into the thick of it in the fall with his fellow councillors, right? So, we'll see how that goes. But for now, he's kinda in his element, and you watched him there in the room. I'm sure he was working the room, listening to people. What are some of the kinds of things that you heard, that the mayor heard?
Stephanie:
Well, like he said, a wide range of everything. He talked about, like, the Post-it notes. So there were these boards around, where people could write and put a Post-it note of what they think. And the theme on each board was, you know, what should the city spend more on? What should we spend less on? What's the one thing that you'd like to see change in the budget? What And also one board was like, would you rather increase taxes to increase services a lot, increase them a little to have the status quo, keep the taxes the same and therefore have a service decrease because of inflation, or cut taxes and cut services significantly? And all of the boards looked pretty much the same, and I'll explain why. It's like, on what should we invest more in and what should we invest less in, they were the same. So it's like road maintenance, police funding, bike lanes, housing for the homeless, that were on all of the boards. Everyone thinks that we should fund them more and fund them less. So basically, you know, one thing is that, well, it's gonna be very hard to please everyone. Actually, I think it's gonna be impossible to fully please anyone. I don't think anyone on Earth is going to be fully happy with the budget that comes through. But I will say, though, there are a few things that, people really agreed on: potholes, snow removal, and stop giving Daryl Katz money. That was everywhere. Written It wasn't just one person going around and putting that on every note. It was all different handwriting. Like, several different people were saying, "Stop giving Daryl Katz money."
Mack:
Interesting, even though they were all wearing Oiler jerseys.
Stephanie:
Well, I, actually, I didn't see if there was a direct correlation between those, 'cause maybe, like, the people that were writing that saw the Oilers jerseys and were just getting so mad. They're like, "Oh, (censored) freaking Daryl Katz." But no, like, people are People are full of contradictions. Like, this one guy, I overheard a conversation. He was defending the people that were throwing stuff at snow-clearing like, workers. You remember that story from a few months ago?
Mack:
Yeah, I remember that, yeah.
Stephanie:
When he was like, "What are you-"…
Mack:
I don't know how you could defend that, but…
Stephanie:
He's like, "How can you blame them?" And then I saw him write, "Stop urban sprawl," and stick it on the, on the thing. Like, you'd never expect. He lives right in the political horseshoe, you know what I mean?
Mack:
Yeah, totally.
Stephanie:
Yeah.
Mack:
You know, these range of options, and the fact that they're all kinda equal, and the fact that you can't please everyone is reminding me of our election survey that we did during the fall election last year, which we've won several or, earned several nominations for now. You can find that in the show notes, but we're very happy about that. Anyway, we had a, several questions about budget, and one in particular. We said, "Which would you prioritize regarding property taxes: lower taxes by cutting spending, increase taxes only to keep up with inflation and population growth, or increase taxes to improve quality of life?" And then we had a, "I don't have a position on this" answer. Of the 27,000 Edmontonians who answered that question, it was pretty evenly split. About 30% said, C, increase taxes to improve quality of life. About 30% said A, you know, lower taxes by cutting spending. The biggest chunk was B, 41%, so still pretty equivalent, who said increase taxes only to keep up with inflation and population growth. So, am I saying that this whole, engagement roadshow is just rehashing stuff we already did during the election? No, not exactly. But there is a little bit of an element to me of, well, we shouldn't be surprised to hear that, because I think Edmontonians have been relatively consistent in their views on what the city should fund.
Stephanie:
Yeah, I think that the answers of our survey are really just, like, obvious. Yeah, of course people don't want their taxes to go up that much and they don't want their services to go down that much. And then, yeah, there are, outliers on either side, but, like, the vast majority of people are just gonna want relatively the same for maybe a little bit more money. But you know, good for them for going out and talking to people.
Mack:
Especially on a game day. Great to have people show up and share their thoughts.
Stephanie:
Yeah, it was awesome. I love to see civic engagement.
Mack:
Okay, what's next then on budget now that this engagement is done? I mean, I'm sure councillors and the mayor will continue to hear from people in Edmonton as we get closer to budget, even though the official engagement stuff is done. But what's next from a, from council's point of view?
Stephanie:
So, I mean, every week from now until the actual budget deliberations, it seems like there's been reports about, "Hey, this is gonna help you inform decisions around budget." Like, for example, coming up next week is a report about the aging bus fleet and different levels of investment that the city can do to either not renew anything and therefore have a really, a lot of service reduction, only renew a few and keep things about the same, or go above and beyond, right? And you can learn all about these reports every Monday on The Agenda, which I write and summarize all the council reports. But anyways, so every week they're doing, like, a little bit, they're kind of chipping away at all the different departments in the city. Specifically related to engagement, the city just said that there's gonna be a What We Heard reports, in the fall, so sometime before budget deliberations.
Mack:
Okay. Well, we'll dig into that once it's available for council. All right, one last item I wanted to talk about this week. We had some negative news recently for people who care about climate adaptation resiliency in, the committee being disbanded, right? It was one of the ones that council decided to end its advisory committee for. But this week the city announced the Community Climate Adaptation Microgrant. So this is intended to support neighborhood level efforts to prepare for climate change, and I wanted to dig into this a little bit, Stephanie, 'cause I think it's kind of interesting. And my starting point was, you know, kinda how I feel about climate stuff in general. It's like, yes, if we all use reusable bags, that would be a good thing, but really, we need to make concrete, emit less carbon in order to really have an impact. Like, we need to do these big things, and I'm kinda skeptical about turning the, you know, viewport back toward individuals and making them feel like they are the ones that have to be responsible for stuff, right? So, I kinda wondered if this grant was doing a little bit of that. So, one way to think about how Edmonton approaches climate is kinda two key ways, right? So one is mitigation, which is let's reduce emissions, let's lower emissions, and the other is adaptation. It's like, climate impacts are gonna happen, how do we make our city and our people less vulnerable to them? And this microgrant is very much in the adaptation side of things.
Stephanie:
So, the total amount available for this new program is $150,000. Grants for individuals range from between $500 to $5,000, and applications are open until funding is allocated on a first come, first served basis. So, that seems like if you have an idea, just go for it, 'cause you're gonna get the money as long as you get there first. And the projects must be completed by November 1st, 2026.
Mack:
Yeah, so it's kind of just for this summer period, really, into the early fall, that these projects can take place. The funding, I think, opened May 4th, or applications opened May 4th. So, you know, $150,000, that's not a huge amount, and I think on this podcast in the past we've criticized some of these grant programs for, like, just not helping enough people, you know? Like the home improvement grants and the energy rebates and things like that. If all of them were fully funded at the maximum size, that's 30 projects, right? Probably it'll be somewhere more like maybe 50, 60, 70, depending on how big each of them are. It's probably not gonna be 300 projects. They're probably not all gonna be $500, projects, right? So it's like a relatively small number of things that will be funded by this. That first come, first served basis is one of the things that's maybe not ideal about this, but the other is that it's a refundable grant, which means you have to spend the money first and then show your receipts and then they'll refund you for things that are eligible. And why that's not great is because, you know, it kinda favors people who already have the cash, right? So if you've already got the money to go and spend on this stuff, then you can apply for the grant. But if you don't, you don't have any money to go and start to do this with, right? So that's a bit of a challenge from an, from an equity point of view. And that first come, first serve also means, you know, if you're ready to go, like you said, if you have an idea, you should go apply for it right now, that kinda favors people who are organized rather than parts of the city that have the biggest need for climate adaptation, right? So not ideal, but I get that these things are challenging to organize. I wanna know what you think about this, Stephanie, but first, just one other thing I wanted to mention is I just was curious about whether other places have done this, right? Did we have to invent something in Edmonton or are we learning from other places? And so I just did a quick search. There are grants down in Calgary called Climate Ready YYC, same idea, 500 to 500, 500 to $5,000, for climate mitigation adaptation projects. Same requirement as well as the Edmonton one, groups of three or more community-minded individuals. This three or more people from different households seems to be the standard that all these municipalities in Canada have decided upon, which is really interesting. There's one in Toronto, the Neighbourhood Climate Action Grant. That one's up to $7500 for resident-led groups, again of three people from different households. Vancouver's got a slightly different model. They've got these Community Climate Action Grants, up to $50,000 each, so they're, can be quite a bit larger. And then I saw some other smaller ones, Kelowna I think was one that came up. So there are a bunch of these microgrant programs around the country. Edmonton's not the first to do this. And I suppose it's a good way to get individuals involved in something that, you know, is gonna require everybody, not just the city, to go and do something about this issue. So what do you think about, what do you make of this, Stephanie? What are, what are your thoughts on this grant?
Stephanie:
I'm gonna try not to be super woo-woo and hippy when I talk about this. So backing up a little bit, on Friday I went to, a city hall talk with, the guest speaker was Michael Colville Anderson, who is this, he wrote that book, about Copenhagen and how the design is so good there. But what he, what he's really into is, like, tactical urbanism and just, like, going into a place that's, like, caked with asphalt and really hostile to pedestrians, and then going in and making it a little bit less so. And he's done it in these, in, like, Ukraine in the middle of war, where, he basically just, like, built benches in his backyard and, like, threw them down, and it was very, like, rag-tag throw-it-together and, but people loved them. And it wasn't just a bench. It was, like, a place for people to, de-stress from the war and the terrible situations that they were all in. And he really wanted to stress that, like, it's just these little small, tiny things. Like, for another example is, like, there were these ping pong tables, but, like, the tops had been taken off a million years ago, so it was just, like, these, you know, metal things, and no one had thought to put the ping pong table back on. So he did, and then within 30 minutes, there was, like, a bunch of people using them, and they're being used all the time. So I do think that these tiny little grants, these tiny little projects, I do think that they can make a difference. And it's not just, like, you get 500 bucks to, oh, I don't know, put up a few raised garden beds in an empty lot. It's not just about the three community-minded individuals that get to use those. I truly do think that it has an impact that goes outward and inspires people. Again, trying not to get too woo-woo but, like, each of those three people, these three community-minded individuals, has their own network, and, like, is their own kind of connector, and then all of the people in their network are gonna kind of be, benefit from the projects included in this grant. So, and I think that it's, like, a good investment of $150,000 to have up to 30 of these, like, mini webs of climate impact, if that makes sense.
Mack:
I love the optimism, and, the…
Stephanie:
I hate when you start sentences with that, Mack, 'cause I know that you're about to be like, "You're so naive."
Mack:
No, I don't, I don't think you're naive. No, I love the optimism, and I think you're right about the importance of engaging real people in our community on these things, right? So we had some councillors do their own little budget examples, right, where they gave small bits of money to people in the community to undertake different projects. You know, I'm a fan of those kinds of initiatives. I think it is good to get people off the couch, so to speak, and engaged in city building, and this is another way to do that. I've been a part of some of those things in the past, and I just feel like they are short-term positive, and long-term the jury's out. We've talked about other ones on the show before too, where people have built a bridge in the River Valley or put up a bench, you know, like you heard from Colville Anderson, and then the city swoops in and says, "No, you can't do that," because they're risk-averse and there's liability, and all of those kinds of things. Like, it's just complicated, right? It's complicated. So I don't know. I go back to these microgrants, and then it's like, what are these actually for? Like, what are people gonna do with this $5000 or $500 if they get it? So the guidelines are you can't use it for personal gain. So you can't use these grants to, like, landscape your backyard or anything like that. Also not for energy retrofits.
Stephanie:
But what if I throw great parties with all my community-minded friends?
Mack:
You can have a party, and you can get funding for the party, but you can't do landscaping. You can't do, energy retrofits. You can't do heat pumps. You can't do community gardens. You can't do rain barrels things like that. But you could do things like have an event where people learn about stuff. You could do workshops. You could do these sort of pop-up kits that they recommend. There's some resilience kits. There's pop-up shade kits, so, you know, in your community league, if you had umbrellas and tarps and other things that could be popped up to help when it's a super hot, sunny day, that's kind of interesting. You could do tree planting. One idea I saw was really interesting, you could you could build, like, a vulnerability map for your neighborhood. So where are the areas that are most vulnerable, or where are the people that are most vulnerable? Like, you know, we know that couple at the end of the block, it's hard for them to get around, and if it's really hot, maybe somebody should go check on them. Like, those kinds of initiatives can be really interesting. So I think there could be some positive things that come of this. I don't wanna be too negative on the whole idea. But it can't be at the expense of that longer term thinking about how to bring things forward and make sure that they continue, you know, into the, into the future. And so to tie it back to budget, I think that's what we gotta be thinking about here. This community grant climate adaptation microgrant is a great thing. Like you said, $150,000, not a lot of money. We're gonna get 30, 50 hopefully really interesting projects. We're gonna build some relationships with, you know, residents and neighbors. But we gotta continue to push on council and administration to do something more about climate. We have to be asking questions when we come in to budget about how all the decisions they're gonna make are gonna affect climate, and we really gotta avoid a situation where they're like, "Well, we have the energy retrofit program. We have the home improvement program. We have the microgrant program. We're doing great, guys." 'Cause we need to do more than that.
Stephanie:
Yeah. To be clear, I think that it should be both, right? Like, I think there should be all these little neighborhood-scale small group-scale things, and much more climate resilient funding citywide, et cetera, et cetera.
Mack:
Well, if you wanna learn more about these, microgrants, the city is hosting information webinars on May 12th and 13th if you want to apply. Funding applications are now being accepted, as we said, first come first served basis. If you're doing one of these things, I'd love to hear about it. Send us a note. We'd wanna know, like, what your project is and what kinda impact you're hoping to have in your community. So think of us. All right. That's our show for this week. Stephanie, we got all this time now to enjoy Edmonton in the summer. There's no shortage…
Stephanie:
<< We're finally here >>…
Mack:
Of good things. And yeah, it does feel Like spring. Summer is starting to finally arrive. All right. That's it for us. We'll be back next week. Until then, I'm Mack.
Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.
Mack:
And we're…
Stephanie:
Speaking…
Mack:
Municipally.