Speaking Municipally

Council has approved selling land to an affordable housing provider, despite community pushback. Plus, some restaurant owners will have to pay more for patios this year, and we have updates on infill and snow clearing.

Here are the relevant links for this episode:

Audience survey
Update on infill
Update on snow clearing
Affordable housing in Wedgewood
Patio fees
Northmark Materials funding
This episode is brought to you by Edmonton Opera. For more than 60 years, Edmonton Opera has shared a history with this city, through works that have filled our halls, shaped our stages, and continued to come alive for audiences long after the curtain fell. The 2026-27 season brings those works back to the Jubilee stage, inviting audiences to reconnect with operas that have long been part of Edmonton's story. Learn more

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Creators and Guests

Host
Mack Male
Co-Founder and CEO of Taproot Publishing Inc.
Host
Stephanie Swensrude
Stephanie is a curator and reporter at Taproot Edmonton. She attended NAIT's radio and television program and has worked at CBC, CFJC in Kamloops, and 630 CHED.
Guest
Anne Stevenson
City Councillor for ward O-day’min.
Guest
Keren Tang
City Councillor

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 Male:
Wedging in affordable housing. This week, council approved selling land to an affordable housing provider despite community pushback.

Stephanie Swensrude:
Plus, some restaurant owners will have to pay more for patios this year.

Mack:
Hi. I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.

Mack:
Welcome back to Speaking Municipally, episode 344. Stephanie, great to have you back on the show.

Stephanie:
Thank you. Yes. I was…

Mack:
How were your travels?

Stephanie:
I they were amazing. I was in Mexico City for a week, and I've got my lucha libre, highlight of my trip, lucha libre shirt.

Mack:
Nice.

Stephanie:
And I just wanted everyone to know that I apologize in advance for bringing up my trip to Mexico City in every conversation I have for the rest of my life, and I will even most likely talk about it on today's episode because it was just amazing. Definitely would recommend trying it out if, like, honestly, if you listen to this podcast, you'd probably have fun in Mexico City.

Mack:
It sounds…

Stephanie:
Weird comparison, but that's my advice.

Mack:
It sounds like there's some great urbanism to be had in Mexico City.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Yeah?

Stephanie:
Ugh. I don'I can talk about it for hours, so I don't think we should even get into it. It was just amazing. Ugh. I, like, I can't even, I can't even start.

Mack:
Well, we will hear more about that, I'm sure, as the episode goes on. I'm glad that was a positive experience because you and I were both just crying. We're recording this on Thursday, February 19th, as we usually do, and Team Canada Women's Hockey, silver, still pretty good.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
But not the color everyone was hoping for.

Stephanie:
Not what our standard maybe is.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
That's too bad.

Stephanie:
Really sad.

Mack:
We're not a sports podcast But we do like the Olympics, as, Stephanie mentioned in the past, so I guess now it's up to the men to win gold in hockey.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I think Friday is, like, the last qualifying game, and then Sunday morning at 6:00 AM is the gold medal game.

Mack:
6:00 AM.

Stephanie:
And if Canada is in it, I will be up.

Mack:
Okay. Well, let's get onto this episode. Before we do that, we've got an ad to play for you. This episode is brought to you by Edmonton Opera. Taproot co-founder Karen Unwin recently had a chance to speak with Edmonton Opera's artistic director Joel Ivany about the new season. So, here's a bit from their conversation.

Stephanie:
I'm here with Joel Ivany of Edmonton Opera. Thank you for joining us.

Anne Stevenson:
Thanks, Karen. It's great to be here.

Stephanie:
So, you're going to unveil for me, the 2026, 2027 season for Edmonton Opera, and, I feel very honored to have this chance because I love opera, and I am…

Anne Stevenson:
Aw.

Stephanie:
Very excited to know what you have in store. So what are you doing?

Anne Stevenson:
Thanks for asking, Karen, and yeah, it's great. It's a privilege to be able to provide opera to the City of Edmonton, and we're really excited to bring back a couple of titles and operas that perhaps, well, we know they haven't been done here in over a decade. So, as we bring about new fans and new audiences, yeah, they're probably gonna be seeing this for the very first time, and for those who know some of these, they get to kind of breathe and exhale that sort of hearing music that they know and love, and we hope we'll bring, you know, good vibes and hope and art to the City of Edmonton. So, our season starts in the fall, in November, in early November, with a production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville.

Stephanie:
Ah.

Anne Stevenson:
And this is sort of, if you can imagine joy, and comedy, and incredible singing, this is probably at the top of the list for what that opera is. It's, based on a play. There were three plays written by Beaumarchais, and this one kind of introduces all the characters that we probably know from Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, but this one kind of is the OG, the first one that kind of started it off, and, yeah, we're really excited to feature that one in early November at the Jubilee. We love opera, and opera at the Jubilee is sort of, the best pairing, so that's the fall slot for us.

Stephanie:
Fun. And then your second show?

Anne Stevenson:
So then, in November, the last five years we've been building on a event called the Rumbold Vocal Prize where we offer exposure, training, and a lot of money to young Canadian singers. And so, on November 20th, we return to the Meyer Horowitz Theatre, and we feature our Rumbold Vocal Prize, and it's a big gala evening. It's an important night for Canadians, for Edmonton Opera, and just to kind of put the city on the map in terms of here's some great international Canadians who are just, a lot of graduates have gone on to international opera houses, but for us, we're celebrating them and sort of this new legacy which is being started by the Rumbold family. So, that's in November, and then in, the new year of 2027, kind of, almost a year from now, we have a brand new production of Mozart's, The Magic Flute…

Stephanie:
Ah.

Anne Stevenson:
Which is Die Zauberflöte, and, this one's really exciting. It's, again, been over a decade that Edmonton has seen or heard, The Magic Flute, and, this is about a quest for love and hope and unity, and, I think those are all great messages that we need right now in the world. And so, that's kind of how our main stage season kind of shapes up, and then, bookending and in the middle of that, we start our kickoff at the end of the summer with Opera al Fresco at the U of A Botanic Garden, which is a incredible event where we gather outdoors and hear music and hear the birds and hear and feel the sun. So, that's always a wonderful event, for people. We have our Diane Kipnes Valentine's Day Gala, which is, the major fundraising event for us, but, it's a very intimate, elegant experience at the Hotel McDonald, and then throughout this, throughout the year, we also have a monthly series called Opera Pub where we are-… in the community and we perform opera in a bar so you can eat and drink and sort of enjoy opera in a very more relaxed and casual atmosphere as well.

Keren Tang:
There's so much wonderful music and art and, lightness to look forward to. So where can people find out more about this?

Anne Stevenson:
So for more information, all of it's on our website, www.edmontonopera.com. We really want to make this your season of opera. Like, this is the time to kind of, if you've thought about it, this is the time to kinda hop on board and see what opera's all about. We love being in the Jew, but as you can kinda hear as well, we're also out in the community in different spaces so make this, yeah, your season of opera.

Keren Tang:
Wonderful. Thank you.

Mack:
Thanks, Karen for that. We'll have more, about Edmonton Opera in future episodes so you can look forward to that. We've got a couple of big items to get to this week, Stephanie, but first, two small updates. We've been talking a lot about infill and we had some decisions made.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So what's the status of infill in Edmonton?

Stephanie:
Yeah. So this week was a council meeting where councillors discussed the bylaw amendments that would come forward. So they didn't make any decisions on changing heights or unit counts or anything. They didn't make any, like, hard and fast decisions on changing the bylaw, but what they did was they directed administration to prepare bylaw amendments that would limit new infill to 9.5 meters in height in the RS zone, and they also voted 11-2 to instruct administration to draft a private tree protection bylaw. And those are gonna be voted on at a future public hearing. Now, you know, the votes on that were 10-3 and 11-2. That doesn't necessarily mean that at public hearing they're going to vote the same way…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Because what it is bringing it forward to public hearing. Some councillors kind of have the idea that, you know, bring anything to public hearing and then that's when you vote on it, and some say, "We shouldn't even bring it to public hearing." One change or, like, lack of change that was decided on at the meeting this week was that they voted to maintain the maximum number of units for, in the RS zone mid-block at eight. Karen Principe tried to introduce a motion to bring it down to six, and that failed for eight.

Mack:
So still at, still at eight. We're throwing a bone if the bylaw amendments are eventually approved in terms of lowering the height a little bit, and then the private tree bylaw. So what we talked about last week in terms of predictions sounds fairly accurate, actually, for where we ended up. So…

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
It's always good when we, we tend to get it right. Thanks for paying attention to that after your trip…

Stephanie:
.

Mack:
And bringing us those updates. So we'll follow up with that public hearing when that happens. The other update we had this week was about snow clearing.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So obviously, this week, perfect timing, coming home from my trip from beautiful Mexico when it was plus 25, I came back 50 degrees lower and got a big dump of snow. It's how, always how it works.

Mack:
Always.

Stephanie:
But with this with this new big dump of snow, everyone was a little bit traumatized from the December snow, so the city has sort of changed its snow clearing approach. So, the city is starting snow clearing earlier and they're hiring extra contractors after, you know, that less than satisfactory response in December. So they're hiring an extra 100 graders and will decide by Friday whether it will be doing residential clearing so by the time this episode comes out. Mack, you were saying that you had to drive during the snowfall. How was that?

Mack:
It was an unusual week for me in that I drove quite a bit more than I usually do, and I was out, quite a bit on Wednesday and again, today, on Thursday. And it's noticeable how much clearer the roads are. Fantastic for drivers because there is just a lot less snow to have to get through. It's not great in that it's pretty bumpy and icy because it got so cold, and there's definitely been challenges for pedestrians crossing the street because it is so slick, because they're quick on the grading, but not quite as quick on getting the sand trucks out and stuff to improve traction. But it's very noticeable that this approach, they started Monday night, you know, we were expecting this dump of snow from Monday to Wednesday, and the city was out Monday already clearing snow. It's, to me, very noticeable this time. They haven't yet, as you pointed out, got to residential, neighborhoods yet. Probably on Friday they'll do that. They'll decide if they need to do a phase two parking ban or not, but, you know, so far on the arterials, the main roads, this phase one parking ban has been much better handled than the last snow event.

Stephanie:
Yeah. And now I'm super curious. I'm sure there will be some sort of report coming forward comparing December to January because between those two snowfalls, a lot of the councillors put forward motions that were like, "We need to figure this out," so I'm sure that this will be used as kind of a case study, and I'm wondering how much more money was spent on the private contractors and all that.

Mack:
Yeah. Absolutely. Well, there's no shortage of council reports about snow and ice clearing.

Stephanie:
.

Mack:
Especially in a budget year. We're gonna hear…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
More about that, for sure.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
Okay. On to our first big item of the episode. This is affordable housing in the Wedgwood area. This is a, seems like a fairly contentious issue that council came down on the side of housing. So we've talked on the show about this before and obviously Topher has done some work with housing complex in the past. Like, a lot of the challenges that we have in our city boil down to a lack of housing. So it's great when council makes a decision that will get us more housing. So introduce us to this topic if you, if people are unfamiliar with what happened here in Wedgwood. What's the debate and what did council decide?

Stephanie:
So Wedgwood Park is a surplus school site. That means that it was designated to have a school at one point in the future, but then Edmonton Public School Board said, "We actually don't need this." So they, it was kind of given to the city. And then a few years after that, the city had all of these surplus school sites and decided this would be a great place to put affordable housing. And this process has been going on for a really long time because, you know, for a while, they've just been sitting there. But in the last few years, the city has, like, gone to work on this and are finally kind of getting these developments going. So, the site in Wedgwood has already been rezoned, and now what council had to do was hold a statutory public hearing on whether it's should sell the lot to Treaty 8 First Nations for $1. So, this group is proposing to build a 60-unit mixed market affordable housing development with three and four bedroom options, so, you know, geared towards family. So, this was a rather contentious public hearing. It took most of the day and a couple people came to show support, but a vast majority of people showed, that they were opposed to it. Now, the reasons for it are a little bit complicated. I would I'll split them into, like, normal everyday infill concerns and specific ones for this one. Of course, traffic and parking was…

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Something that was mentioned a lot. This neighborhood only has one entrance in and out. It's not as bad as Cameron Heights, which is on the other side of the ravine from it, where you have to enter off of the Henday. I would hate that. But it's, it also only has one entrance in and out. They don't have transit. They only have on-demand transit at the time. And this particular field that would be built on has tennis courts, and soccer fields, and a temporary ice rink, and they'd lose most of that if this housing complex was to go forward. Now, specifically for this one, there were some legal issues going on. Council's decision to develop Wedgwood Park two years ago was made with a big kinda omnibus motion with about 11 different surplus sites all at once. But Wedgwood residents thought that, you know, that's not proper public consultation. So, Leah Witanowski, a resident of the neighborhood, took council's process to a judicial review. In November, the Court of King's Bench of Alberta found that city council did not properly host a public hearing to consider the motion, so it rendered the decision invalid, and that's why they had to revisit the issue on Wednesday. So, lack of proper consultation was the reason that it was at council this week.

Mack:
Interesting that the judge actually agreed, 'cause, you know, we've mentioned this before. It often seems like if you don't get your way, you complain about the public engagement process. But usually, those complaints are fairly unfounded. Like, it didn't go your way, but the engagement happened. But in this case, the judicial review found, no, that's not sufficient.

Stephanie:
So yeah. It was a bit like I said, it was a bit spicy, a bit contentious. At least one resident threatened to sue the city or city council Wasn't exactly clear. During the closing remarks, there were outbursts in chambers, which of is not allowed. You're not allowed to clap. You're barely allowed to laugh in…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Council chambers. I heard over the mic someone say, "This place is full of lies!"

Mack:
Wow.

Stephanie:
Yeah. The "this place is full of lies" I thought was kind of a banger quote.

Mack:
Absolutely, yeah. Gotta keeps some decorum in there. Yeah.

Stephanie:
Exactly, yeah.

Mack:
And then, of course, there was, probably the same thing over and over, like a lot of the speakers repeating the same messages that they all maybe primarily focus on lamenting the loss of the park space, or what was the biggest concern, do you think?

Stephanie:
So, you know what's interesting, related to this like what you just said, is that they all did these presentations that all were, like, designed and outlined the same, and a counselor would ask, you know, "Speaker 14, about this little detail that was in your presentation." And after a while, one of the people said, "Honestly, council, I am I made all of these presentations for all of these people. I am the one that knows the most about this. I made all of it. I'm the only one that knows what's going on. You can just talk to me."

Mack:
Wow, really?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And what was council's response to that?

Stephanie:
They were like, "Okay, I guess we'll just talk to you." It's not…

Mack:
Fascinating. That's like…

Stephanie:
Isn't that fascinating?

Mack:
I mean, it's not a surprise. We know that this happens.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
There's, like, these coordinated groups of people that get to go and speak at council, or committee, whatever, but pretty interesting to just admit right upfront Like, "I just did all of this. It's me." "I'm the one."

Stephanie:
I know, I know. So yeah. That's what happened there.

Mack:
Okay. So, what did council do…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
After they heard from this one person repeating their message through 14 other people?

Stephanie:
Well, and yeah, it was, it was, it was a very thorough it touched on all these different issues, and it was very thorough. So, Coun. Thu Parmar this is her ward, she put forward a motion to refer it back to council to find a different place for the development and some councillors kind of questioned the point of this motion, because admin has kind of already done this. That is why this site was chosen for affordable housing.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
And then that, so that move, that motion to kind of move the site lost four-nine. Councillors Reed Clarke, Mike Elliott, Thu Parmar of course, and Karen Prince-Pay voted to try to find a different place and, then later on, they did eventually vote to sell it at, for $1, and that vote was ten-three. Mike Elliott, Thu Parmar, Karen Principe voted against it, so Reed Clarke switched over, I guess you could say.

Mack:
And so this was just to approve the sale of the land. The rezoning already happened. Like, there's nothing else preventing this from moving forward. Now, of course, they've got to get development permits and things, but the site is zoned. The land has been sold. This affordable housing project sounds like it's clear to move forward now.

Stephanie:
Yep, seems like it, and, I believe they're getting funding from other levels of government and stuff, and I don't know if I made this explicitly clear, but this is going to be geared towards Indigenous families. In the presentation, a lot of, the city staff talked about the affordable housing needs assessment, which the city did a couple years ago, which shows that one in eight households in Edmonton are in core housing need, which basically means they pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs, or sometimes it means that they're staying in a place that's way too small for their family, or that it's, like, in disrepair, and they can't afford to fix it. So it's one in eight of the general population, but that's one in three Indigenous renter households. So, when you think about how dire the need is for Indigenous renters, and this is, going to be affordable housing for Indigenous renters… (sighs)…

Mack:
Sounds like council made the right decision, then.

Stephanie:
I won't say my opinion as a reporter, but, that was, you know…

Mack:
I'll say my opinion. Council made the right decision then…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
To allow this housing project, which sounds really needed, to move forward. It's always unfortunate when there's a loss of community space and, amenities and some of the facilities in that park are, you know, one of those things. But this is also aligned with previous decisions that council has made informed by public opinion that no one part of the city should bear the brunt of this challenge, and so we do wanna build this throughout the city. So to me, I think this is a great example of council following through on previous direction, values, you know, decisions that they've, that they've made. So, sounds like the right thing happened here in terms of the judicial review, just making sure that we do follow the correct process. But once we've done that, let's not hold it up unnecessarily when there is such a need. Well, thank you for that update, Stephanie. The next big update we wanna talk about is totally different kind of problem, patio fees.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
So, I mean, it's hard to think about patios right now When it's minus 30 degrees. But we like a good patio in Edmonton, and it sounds like that might be a little bit more expensive in the future.

Stephanie:
Yeah, so CBC did some reporting, I guess, like, a bunch of restaurants got a, an email sent out from the city, you know, "Normally every year you have a patio. Well, this year it's gonna change." So, new fees for city patio licenses are coming into effect on April 1st following years of restaurants not having to pay anything. CBC had obtained some emails, sent by the city's patio team that say that the new fees are meant to address budget shortfalls. So a spokesperson from the city said the program previously was delivered with no costs to businesses, but that is no longer sustainable. With reduced funding as a result of the 2024 fall supplemental operating budget adjustment, the city is shifting to a shared investment model. So starting in April, fees to operate a large year-round patio on public space will be just under $7,000 for the year, and for a large seasonal patio, it'll be $3,700.

Mack:
So that sounds like a lot, $7,000 almost for a year-round patio. If I remember correctly, the reason that this, these fees were next was largely due to the pandemic, right? This was one of the ways that the city could support businesses following, you know, the COVID-19 pandemic. People wanted to be outside.

Stephanie:
Exactly.

Mack:
They didn't wanna be inside or in some cases couldn't be inside when those businesses were closed. So that's one of the things the city did, was make it easier for businesses to open patios. And I remember when that happened, the reaction, I think, from folks was pretty positive, right? In that, like, "Why shouldn't these spaces always be active?" we talk about bringing life to the street, and patios were one of the ways that we could do that. Most of the places we have though are not designed with patios in mind, and so they end up taking up parts of the sidewalk or, you know, other public land. And so you end up then having to build sidewalks around the patio. There's the complication of ramps, because a lot of our old streets, on the sidewalks, they're quite high, and so we need to maintain accessibility. So there's a lot of challenges with it. So I understand that it's not free to open a patio. There are costs involved. And I see here in the notes that these fees are meant to cover some of those maintenance costs, essentially, for the patios. But not all of it, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah. In the CBC article, it says the city estimates the full cost of maintaining a year-round patio is more than $20,000. So that includes labor and material costs to install concrete barriers and flex posts and signs and that sort of thing.

Mack:
Ugh, I know there's a cost to these things, Stephanie, but whenever I hear that it's just, like, I can walk down the street and find about 50 signs And concrete barriers just laying about. Like, just move one of those over and you've got the problem solved.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
It's kind of frustrating when we have, we have these expenses. But okay, I get it, there's staff time, things like that. But the businesses also need to maintain these things, right? They're responsible for…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Some of that maintenance. Probably not moving the concrete barriers in place and everything, but still, some of the maintenance. And some patios, I think, do this really well. Close to home for me, Kelly's Pub on 104th Street Bird Dog on 104th Street, they're quite responsible, active. They're out there cleaning the patio. You know, they take down the fence in the winter, put it back up. Like, they're really good at looking after that space. But there is still an encroachment on, you know, public land, and they, there are still, you know, barriers and barricades and things like that need to be, erected. So, there is a cost to the business as well, not just to the city. What are people saying about this change then? Because, okay, on the one hand, makes sense. We're in a tough fiscal era. Maybe this is a reasonable thing for the city to do. Calling it a shared investment model's an interesting way to put it. But I imagine some people are pretty upset about this.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Honestly, it's very split online. I'll start with my thoughts.

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
'cause when I first saw this, I thought, "Ah, unfortunate. It's an unfortunate consequence of budget costs." Because unironically, I think that patios are one of the most important things to create a lively and vibrant city. Now, when I was in Mexico City…

Mack:
Oh, here it is.

Stephanie:
Every restaurant has a patio there, and it's awesome. You just, like, you walk, like, and you, and they're all, kind of set apart from the restaurant, so you walk through them when you're walking down the street, and you just, like, do a little smile. You say, "Provecho," which means, like, bon appetit to the people in the restaurant. And it's just, like, lovely. It's just a lovely, vibrant ambience to be in. And I thought, "Damn, you know, like, the city really couldn't take money from anything else?" And it I also thought, "This punishes business owners that are trying to add vibrancy to the public realm and more of the core areas." Whereas, like, for example, a giant Canadian Brewhouse on the outskirts of the city that is purpose-built to have a rooftop patio, for example. No hate. We love Canadian Brewhouse. No hate. But they wouldn't face the same charges, of course, 'cause it's just built into their thing.

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
But something like Next Act, Meat, Julio's, like all of these places on Whyte Ave, for example, they're being-… be punished in a way for bringing vibrancy to the neighborhood. Okay, so that was my first thought.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
But then because I am a sheep, I saw people online doing the math, and it would cost $130 a week for a year-round patio. And if you assume six months for the seasonal patio, about $150 a week. So, you know, the idea is that businesses should be able to increase their profits by more than $130, $150 bucks a week…

Mack:
Sure.

Stephanie:
If they have that much more space. And, you know, having worked at a restaurant with a patio in Strathcona, it is, like, a really important part of the, of the, of the business model. Our neighboring restaurant had their patio up a week before ours was, and almost nobody came into our restaurant because they just wanted to sit on the patio so bad. It was, like, early May, it was, like, 15 degrees, and everyone wanted to sit outside, and we didn't have ours, and we didn't have anyone come in. And also, if you're scheduled to serve the indoor tables when the patio's open and it's a nice day, you can almost guarantee you're gonna serve, like, 10%…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
Of the people. So patios are very, like, successful, I would say.

Mack:
People love being outside.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
I don't know, like, the people online, I don't know if I would go this far, but if you can't drum up $150 a week to cover that, extra cost, then you're doing something wrong. Now, again, I don't know if I'd go that far, but that's what people are saying.

Mack:
I mean, I understand the business perspective though, right, which is that, sure, it's only $150 a week, but all these little costs add up. All of my inputs have gone up, all of the…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Costs of doing business have gone up. Like, it's challenging, right? And so, I can raise my prices to account for some of those things, but then I'm gonna lose some people, I'm gonna lose some business. People are gonna choose to eat out a little bit less than they might have in the past, right? So…

Stephanie:
Right.

Mack:
I can understand that. What I'd love to see is not just the city say, "Okay, we can't offer you the free lunch anymore. No such thing as a free lunch. We've gotta charge you a little bit." But kind of more of a review of how we do this in the first place, like you were saying. Like, I wonder if we could lower those maintenance costs with a review of the program. So, I don't understand why most of the patios in Edmonton are the kind that are, directly adjacent to the business and you have to go around them. Why isn't it like you were describing where the sidewalk remains open and as is and the patio's just on the other side of it, and we take out a little bit of the parking lane or the traffic lane in order to accommodate that? That would eliminate the need for some of those barricades, certainly for the ramps, that need to be put into place to go around, the patios. So, like, I wonder if there's a way to review that to just make it more affordable and lower these costs overall.

Stephanie:
Yeah. I also wonder, speaking again specifically going to Whyte Avenue, with the old Strathcona public realm strategy, I think that there it's that sort of thing is kind of built in. Like, they…

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
The idea is to build the wider sidewalks so it's easier to have a patio and a sidewalk.

Mack:
Right. And that is perfect when we're in a situation where we can do that and redevelop the sidewalk. But there's lots of places…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Where that's not happening anytime soon. So how can we do it in a more effective or more cost-efficient way, I guess, is one of those things. Any other reaction you've seen that's worth mentioning about this?

Stephanie:
Yeah, so I just was casually scrolling on LinkedIn, as I do, and I saw Peter Keith, who has a number of food ventures, including Muhly's and The Hub on Whyte Ave. He said that he's canceled his plans for a large Whyte Ave patio because of these fees. Now, this might be a bit of a bluff. Who knows?

Mack:
Sure, yeah.

Stephanie:
But yeah, he said that we can't do that. We can't, we can't swing the plans. So no patio outside of The Hub.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
You can't eat your Bev's Bagels out on the patio this year.

Mack:
Well, we'll see what the impact of this is, I suppose, when it gets out of the deep freeze and, patios are slated to start opening again to see how…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
Many businesses choose to open this, er, or open their patios this season or not. I suspect, like you said, businesses will find a way to do it because they know that people love being outside on the patio, and you kinda need to have one in the summer…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
To be successful.

Stephanie:
Seriously.

Mack:
All right. We've got one other topic we wanted to address this, episode. Speaking of, you know, making money, we want more businesses and industrial development and that kind of activity to happen within the City of Edmonton because we get the tax revenue for that. And one of these things came up at council this week, right?

Stephanie:
Yes, totally. It was actually delayed from a few weeks ago because the, Coun. Anne Stevenson tried to introduce a motion, and there wasn't enough information. So it finally got around to it this week. So council, led by Anne Stevenson, voted seven to six to give Northmark Materials, formerly known as Backroads Reclamation, $75,000 towards a new facility, and the part of the agreement is that it will be located within the City of Edmonton itself.

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
This touches on this Edmonton's continuous battle to have industrial businesses locate here, because, they do not like to do so. They much prefer there are, like, amazing, beautiful industrial parks in Acheson, South Dakota County, Nisku, like Leduc County, but we have we struggle with that, and that's seen as part of the many complicated reasons why, Edmonton's property taxes get so high, is because, we don't have enough industrial. However, they voted seven-six to give some money to help, Northmark move here. So Stevenson said it's a worthy investment because the math that she did Now again, this wasn't really included in the report, but the math shows that the city will make the tax revenue back within six months, and they she had to do it now. It's timely because Northmark got a $2 million grant from the province and they need to kind of move quickly on this. And the funding is coming from the Commercial Revitalization Reserve. It doesn't exactly align perfectly with the purpose of the reserve, but it's…

Mack:
It…

Stephanie:
Close.

Mack:
A pot of money they can justify using for…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
For this project. Okay, and presumably we're okay moving quickly, or council's okay moving quickly because they think that this will pay off in the end.

Stephanie:
Yeah, or at least seven councillors. It was a close vote, right?

Mack:
Very close vote, yeah.

Stephanie:
Yeah. And, but, you know, they a lot of them acknowledged that the one-off nature of this wasn't ideal and that it might set a precedent for other companies coming to council for this sort of grant funding, you know?

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
Company says, "Oh, so Northmark got $75,000?"

Mack:
Right.

Stephanie:
"Maybe I can go and get some cash." So here's what Coun. Stevenson had to say. And just a short warning, the audio quality of the council recording is kind of weird, so it's not your headphones, it's the it's the council recording.

Anne Stevenson: So I mean, I think, I think we're just in a tricky situation in that, administration is planning to come back with sort of a full economic development program, and structure later this year. The timing of this just doesn't allow us to wait for that to be in place. I think in terms of precedent, if there are a dozen more opportunities like this where we have a $2 million grant from the province, where we earn back our investment in less than six months on property tax, I would, I would love to see those lining up personally.

Stephanie:
So she says bring it on.

Mack:
Yeah, I mean, we don't automatically have to grant everyone else $75,000, right? So I get what she's saying there. And it would be a nice problem to have, if we had so many businesses wanting to relocate into Edmonton, perfect opportunity to figure out a way to make that more efficient.

Stephanie:
Yeah. Yeah. On kind of the other side of this, Coun. Karen Tang brought up issues with generally how the city invests in entrepreneurs. Now, I would assume that, of course, she talks about this every night around the dinner table Because her husband is Startup TNT co-founder Zach Storms. Now, I know a lot of our listeners are probably not super plugged into the tech world in Edmonton. Mack, can you just explain quickly what is Startup TNT?

Mack:
Yeah. Startup TNT is this group of investors and they, you know, Zach and Tim and the folks who started it got together and said, "There's an opportunity for small investors, angel investors, to be contributing to startups and scale-ups in Edmonton, but they don't know how to do it. And it's hard to find the good opportunities, so let's bring them all together." And so it started out as, "Let's get together for beer every Thursday night, we'll introduce some investors to some companies, and we'll go from there." And they've grown quite successfully since then. They've launched a number of these investment summits where companies pitch, investors are in the room, you know, they make a deal and they put some of that money into these businesses to help them grow. So, it's very much an example of, somebody in the community seeing a need and then doing what it takes to make it happen.

Stephanie:
Amazing. And now, just for some context about some of the other things we're gonna talk about, can you tell us what the Edmonton EDGE Fund is?

Mack:
The EDGE Fund was one of these, ways that the city thought it could support scale-ups and startups, and so they launched this EDGE Fund competition. It was, I think, an election promise that, then mayor Sohi had made. They put up five million bucks that they were gonna invest into local businesses to help them grow, to help them scale. And so, businesses applied. There was a certain number of businesses that were successful. They received some funding from the city essentially to grow their businesses. So it was, it was kind of like what the federal government does all the time through PrairiesCan. Sometimes the provincial government does. This was the first, or one of the few examples of the city putting municipal dollars in to help, growing businesses try to get to the, to the next level.

Stephanie:
So, yeah, obviously because of her connections and her knowledge of the Startup TNT, the investment world, tech startups and all this, she brought some, like, really good points to the, to the discussion. She made the point that over 600 companies applied for the EDGE Fund and only 17 got funding.

Mack:
Yeah.

Stephanie:
So she said, "You know, there's over nearly 600 companies that would probably love the 75 grand." And then she also asked admin if they did due if they did due diligence and they just said, "No, not really." Which is another reason why She was a little bit spooked about this. So, in the end, this is when this is a clip of what she said to close before she voted against providing the grant.

Keren Tang:
In the past, we have made one-off decisions like this that really didn't sit well with me. Prior to being elected, I have heard of council members making very specific requests for specific organizations and companies that, quite frankly, sends a very cynical message to the business community. I think instead, we should be focusing on economic development programs instead, such as extending EDGE Fund, and that's a report coming in a few short months.

Stephanie:
Yeah. So there is a report coming, like she said. There's one coming about, just generally about Edmonton's economic development agencies, such as Edmonton Unlimited, Edmonton Global, Edmonton Screen, and Explore Edmonton. And then later on, there's one about it's, the title is Edmonton Economic Development Strategy Refresh. So again, more information about how, the city invests in companies like this.

Mack:
I think she makes some good points. Definitely, and I think it's great that council got to hear her take on that. And maybe that was one of the reasons that it ended up being such a close vote in the end. It's probably a situation where we need all of the above, right?

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
I think it's pretty easy to say, "No, we shouldn't give this one off, we should just do another EDGE Fund extension so that we get another 17 out of 600 businesses funding." Like, I'm not sure that's also a way to solve the problem. But in combination with some other things, then, you know, all of these things can help, right? I think the other perspective is just, if I put on that business hat, if you can successfully go and find a way to get the city to give you $75,000 Then congratulations, you've done, you've done your job. You've done something there that is scrappy, entrepreneurial. You know, you've done what business owners are supposed to do. Go and find a way to grow your thing and get the resources you need to make your vision come to life. I don't know that we should begrudge business owners for that. I'm not saying that she was, you know, saying anything bad about the Northmark folks here, more about how the city handled it. But I mean, kudos to them. If you can go and convince the city to give you some money, then well done. Well done.

Stephanie:
There's more to come on this.

Mack:
Sounds good. Okay. Well, thanks for that update and, we'll also be paying attention to those reports you mentioned that are coming back. I'm quite interested in the one about economic development agencies and some of the other things that are on the schedule, hopefully for this year, for council to consider. Well, Stephanie, I'm sorry you're back in such cold, miserable weather. Although, it doesn't seem like it'll last quite as long this time…

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
As last time. So that's good. Hopefully you can still just remember how good it felt…

Stephanie:
I…

Mack:
To be in Mexico City.

Stephanie:
I am. I seriously, the memories are living. The body holds the score and, you know, I am remembering. It's so nice.

Mack:
Well, today is the last day to fill out our audience survey…

Stephanie:
Bye.

Mack:
If you haven't already done that. Assuming you wanna get entered into the draw to win some possibly win some tickets to Skirts afire. So again, link will be in the show notes. Please do that if you haven't already. And then we'll be back again next week with more about what city council is up to. In the meantime, go Canada, go.

Stephanie:
Whoa.

Mack:
Hopefully we can win a few more medals before the Olympics finish.

Stephanie:
Yeah.

Mack:
And then, and then we'll hopefully be celebrating those victories next week. And until then, I'm Mack.

Stephanie:
I'm Stephanie.

Mack:
And we're…

Both:
Speaking Municipally.