Welcome to the RAEdio podcast brought to you by RAE, the Realtors Association of Edmonton. So that's the Ray in our radio. We deliver easy to understand market insights, some homeowner tips, perspectives from industry experts so that you can feel informed and empowered wherever you are in your home ownership journey because better decisions start with better information. And joining us on the podcast to talk all things housing is the Mayor of Edmonton, Andrew Knack. Hello, mister Mayor.

Hello. Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah. Thanks for joining us to talk about this because, obviously, this is a huge issue for realtors in Edmonton, for anybody who's buying and selling a home, anybody who lives in the city. You've had a long experience obviously as a counselor dealing with this issue. What are some of the things you think about when it comes to housing in Edmonton that really concern you?

You know, I think the thing that that concerns me the most is just trying to maintain and keep up with this rapid population growth. So we have made a lot of progress in the last decade of being and now we're considered by far and away the most affordable major city in all of Canada, and it's not even really a contest at this point. You know, I've talked to folks that are building homes in both Calgary and Edmonton, and Calgary was sort of the next closest, and now their housing prices for the same home on the same size lot with the same, you know, materials, if you will, is upwards of 150,000 to $200,000 difference. And I think the reason why we've managed to not see the level of increase that other cities have is because we've done a really good job of trying to keep up with supply by making changes under our land use regulations and updating that to provide more choice. At the same time, you know, there is that tension point for those of us that live in older neighborhoods, they're starting to see a lot more of that change because we're seeing a lot of that rapid growth.

And what I heard about when I was campaigning was people really understood why we need to build more housing. And at the same time, you know, when it's in your neighborhood, on your block, next door to your home, there is this tension point in how do you find that balance recognizing that if you let up like some cities have been doing, what you see over and over and over again is the prices start to skyrocket because the supply has been limited. So I think it's just this balancing this tension of making sure we continue to provide housing choice the way we have over the last ten years, while at the same time trying to respond to those who are really feeling that pressure and acknowledging that their feelings are real and we don't want to vilify someone for feeling that way. At the same time, we need to make sure we're not forgetting about our ultimate goals as a city, which is creating one of the most affordable major cities, if not the most affordable major city in Canada.

And, of course, what we're talking about here is infill, and there's a lot of infill housing going on. It it happens in my neighborhood where I, you know, I live in a in an older neighborhood, and and some of them are really nice, and some I think, oh, that's awful. And, you know, that's where people sort of react to it. Right? They're like, what?

That looks terrible. It's really hard to sort of police that sort of thing, and I know it's a give and take. So it's really something you have to massage, I would think. Right?

We do. And I I think, you know, during during the campaign, I talked a lot about making sure we are still making some refinements. I'm not looking to do, you know, for example, a lot of folks in the city of Calgary in this last election campaigned on the idea of of repealing their entire bylaw and sort of starting from scratch. I think we have made way too much progress over the last decade to take that kind of approach. So and truly, I think what I heard in most communities is, again, people are just looking for refinement.

They understand there needs to be more homes in our older neighborhoods. Almost all of our older neighborhoods, including the one I live in, have far fewer people today than they did fifty years ago. And that's a mind boggling stat when you think about the overall population of Edmonton having grown substantially in the last fifty years and yet older neighbourhoods have fewer people. So there's ways to do this. I think I'm really looking forward to making changes that can be thoughtful thoughtful and respond to some of the real concerns we have while at the same time allowing that choice that we've been really specializing in this in the city of Edmonton over the over the last ten years going forward.

What's the connection between affordable housing and housing for people who are really, really in a rough situation? You know, that low income housing, that sort of thing, where that that kind of housing needs to be subsidized for some people. That's just the way it's always been. I I lived in that when I was a kid. You know, my parents were being immigrants, and a lot of the people we live with were saying as they try to establish their footing.

There is some connection, but in a lot of ways, it's also two different things you have to deal with. Right?

Yes. You're right. They're separate but connected and we try to explain that. So we know when I refer to them being separate, it's because, you know, affordable housing or market affordable housing is typically just done through providing a lot more housing options. So if you're building a lot of housing, typically that helps stop the prices from rising as quickly.

I mean, I know people don't like to think of housing as a commodity, and frankly, I mean, that's a whole philosophical conversation we could have about whether housing should be a commodity and should be a real estate part of your your retirement plan. But, nevertheless, that is the reality. Right? If if you limit supply, prices go up. That is just the reality of housing.

So market affordable housing is really can be done in a few ways. There can be government funded market affordable housing, but also if you just increase the supply, if you allow more housing to be built, that generally helps the overall affordability of housing. Then there's the non market housing, so what we would consider deep subsidies, what you might consider supportive housing for those who are actually struggling with homelessness and mental health and addiction. So again, even within the non market housing, there are different categories. There are those who just need who have jobs and are just paying more than 30% of their income to housing versus those who are out on the street or who are struggling with addictions or who have been couch surfing who need their own set of housing.

So for the truly, for those who need the greatest level of support, those who are homeless, those who are struggling with mental health and addictions, that is solely going to be solved through a government funding. Now you might still partner with the private sector, you might do other things like that, but the funding comes from government. For deep subsidy and all types of what you would consider housing, whether that's, you know, 15% below market value all the way to the deep subsidy, that can be done through a combination of government and private sector. And this is where it does play into effect is that if you are building more housing, you know, sometimes you're gonna hear from people, and I get it, you know, if you live in a neighborhood where housing prices are high no matter what, you know, there's a few neighborhoods I used to represent as a counselor that no matter what, the price of a home was always going to be expensive. It would not be available to purchase for probably 90% of the public because the housing prices are so much higher.

And so some communities see that and say, well, wait a second, you replaced a $600,000 home for a $1,000,000 skinny home or a $1,500,000 home on a 50 foot lot, that's not more affordable. You've taken away the more affordable home and you've replaced it. What I think we often forget about in this equation, and I like to use the example right across the street from where I live, And I've talked about this example a number of times, so folks know I live close to the Jasper Place Library and right across the avenue from me, there's a 10 unit row housing development that was built about seven, eight years ago, and it replaced two single family homes. Now if you just took each of those two homes and you had subdivided it and built four skinny homes, chances are the price of those skinny homes would have been more than the homes they replaced. Right.

Because those were $330,000 homes. Skinny homes in my neighborhood were selling seven or eight years ago 4 and 50,500 thousand dollars But that got to be replaced with 10 units of bro housing and what we saw from that is that when those entered the market, those two and three bedroom townhomes that were larger than the homes that they were placed in a central neighborhood close to schools that were in low enrollment because of that declining population, the price of those homes was $320,000 and $330,000 Seven years later, the first one finally went on the market for resale, sold for about $350,000. So it it there is this component of as you can build more units, you can create pricing that is more competitive with some of the newer neighborhoods. But it's worth noting that even in the in even in the more expensive neighborhoods, you know, not not neighborhoods like mine that are, you know, land values are quite low, when you're adding more units of housing, then you are creating that capacity. Maybe somebody right now is in that, you know, market affordable rental home or that rental apartment, but they can afford more.

But because there hasn't been enough choice, they find themselves in that home. So if you create more units, even if there are more expensive units, somebody who might be in that market affordable home can move into that space because they have the income which in turn frees up housing options for those who might be lower income. So there is a large argument, and again, I don't this isn't, you know, I don't think it's any surprise. This is very much a supply and demand issue. The more homes you are building, the more you create opportunities for people of all incomes to live in different housing types, And if you can build a lot of it, you really help those, even those who are struggling the most, get into housing that might be more affordable because it's not being tied up by somebody who can maybe afford more but didn't have a choice.

Do you think there's a kind of a psychological hurdle that people have to get over? They're used to a certain kind of home, you know, and I I I grew up for the most part in a, you know, a family bungalow, 1,200 square foot bungalow. And, you know, before that, I lived in row housing that was subsidized. And then as I grew up, you know, you see the average house growing to 2,000 square feet. Now we see that row housing, some of it can be really nice.

You see eight plexes, but some people, you know, sort of rear their head at. But as we get through these hurdles and and the and the housing changes in the city, is that is that part of it? People just accepting that, okay, things are gonna look different from what I used to see.

There there's absolutely gonna be a component of that. And and it's and now here's the thing, though. A lot of market surveys show that, you know, if you had a choice, most people still want to live in their own single family home in a big yard. Right? And actually, that probably isn't entirely shocking.

I I might be the anomaly. I love living in a 700 sqft condo, I like that smaller lifestyle living, I like not having to shovel snow and cut grass, but I think market surveys have shown that primarily when given the choice, if money was not an issue and you had a choice, most people would say, Yes, I want to live in my own standalone single family home on a 50 foot lot with a big yard and I want all, you know, I want all of those things.

Right.

The problem is that housing prices have reached a point where that is no longer the reality for a lot of people, right? I mean, I'm the I'm 42 now and I got into the housing market, into this condo before the boom started happening. And what we saw is that over the last fifteen, twenty years, you know, I got in, I got to buy my first home when I was about 22. If you asked somebody who's 22 right now if they even think they would have a chance to get their first home at that age, well, no, they'd sort of laugh and say, well, of course not. Like, they're thinking, I might not be able to get a home until I'm 35 or 40, right?

And so we do have to acknowledge that even though I think everyone wants to have their own single family home, the market does create price pressures and so that is why row housing is more popular. You go out into the suburbs of Edmonton outside the Henday, you see a lot of row housing, you see a lot of semi detached housing, and you see that because the price point is more achievable for those families. So even though most people might want this, if that's the closest thing they can get to their own home, they're sharing a wall, they'll take that still, right? They'll happily still take that. It might not be their ideal, but it's still a great opportunity.

And so we do have to acknowledge that yes, housing will look different, right? Would it be great that every person could own their own single family home on a 50 foot lot? Absolutely. Does the price point allow that reality to happen combined with our rapid population growth? Absolutely not.

That that is that is just it's not possible anymore unless the only thing you did for new housing is just continue to expand the boundaries of your city. So if you just said we're not going to do any infill and we're only going to allow growth outwards, and let's assume know, for the sake of this hypothetical that the provincial government would have no issue with us annexing wide swaths of land from every county and small city, which, again, I don't wanna do, but let's just use that as the scenario here. Right. Sure. If you didn't have to worry about the physical boundaries and could grow out forever, you could potentially build enough housing that might allow you to have that in a city of 1,250,000.

But that is, again, not a realistic scenario. It's not possible. Plus, we can't keep expanding the boundaries of our city beyond what they have. We said five years ago, we approved our city plan and said we're not going to expand our boundaries and annex more land. We're going to work within the boundaries that we have because every time we expand and grow outwards, there's a lot of cost pressures, far more cost pressures than if you simply saw that growth within my existing mature neighborhood.

So yes, we have to get to that point of understanding that, you know, those of us who are fortunate to buy our first home when we were in our 20s or maybe even our 30s and many of us who did that ten or fifteen or many, many years ago need to recognize that somebody that's under 30 now is in an extremely different life circumstances than we were when we got to buy our first home. And therefore, we need to make sure the market is free enough and open enough that we can build housing for those who are in a different circumstance than we were in. And again, I think most people generally get that. I, you know, I know this conversation always makes it sound like nobody's willing to make that change. I find 80% of people recognize that reality.

There's 20% who would love to just say, nope, no change at all, but I think most people are like, no, we're gonna change. It's it's the how we change, it's the nuance within that. And I think most people recognize that, yes, people are going to live in different style housing than they did when I grew up, which was in that 1,200 square foot bungalow. That's not the reality for folks anymore. A lot of folks growing up nowadays, the young kids, you know, in the suburban neighborhoods that I used to represent as a counsellor, Most of the young families were in that three or four bedroom townhome in a new neighborhood because it was what they could afford.

And the kids, you know, and the families are just that's their reality. And great. Let's let's make sure we can support them in that life choice.

Now this podcast is sponsored by the, Realtors Association of Edmonton. I know over the years, they've done some advocacy with you and as a counselor and that sort of thing. What kind of relationship have you had with realtors and sort of tapping into that knowledge that they can sometimes bring to this issue?

Yeah. It's been really great to to have a relationship with the Realtors Association of Edmonton. They have been a a great voice to and and can always provide us really good statistics about the the things we're discussing when we're talking about land use bylaws. They can show us here's how the price of housing has changed over the last number of years, here's how it's changed maybe in a specific neighborhood, here's why you might wanna think about this factor when you're considering this land use change. And so it's been really valuable to have the Realtors Association of Edmonton involved in our land use bylaw discussions and just discussions on how we grow communities because these are folks that are doing the work day in or day out.

They're the ones hearing from people who want to buy homes in the first place of what they're looking for, where they wanna move, and and that kind of real world experience is really valuable when it comes to folks like myself having to make a decision about how do we make change so that we are responding to the needs of as many people as possible. So it's been really great, great partnerships, and I expect that's going to continue for for a long, long time to come.

I know that it can be difficult from a municipal point of view to deal with other levels of government because whenever you're talking about any of this, you have to deal with the province and with low income housing. You're dealing with the feds. That's a balancing act, and it becomes very political. How do you approach that? What is your philosophy there?

The the way I try to approach it is is to actually remove the the the political part about it because, you know, at the end of the day, I don't care whether you're conservative, liberal, new democrat, most people want people to have housing options. You know, most people want somebody experiencing homelessness to have a home instead of living in the park two blocks away from their home where they're not getting care and support that they need. And so in my time as mayor so far, I've had a chance to engage with the provincial government, talk to them about these concerns because housing primarily does fall within provincial jurisdiction. The federal government will provide some funding and they have in the last number of years when the City of Edmonton took the lead to build a lot of permanent supportive housing, but really at the end of the day, the ongoing operations of what you would consider supportive housing or post recovery housing falls directly into the hands of the provincial government. And so when I met with folks in the provincial government and different ministers, including Minister Nixon who oversees a lot of this work, I was really encouraged actually because when we sat down to talk, I was expecting maybe a different view, but no, Mr.

Nixon was the first one that said, listen, we need your help to advocate to the federal government because they've announced a lot of funding for housing over the last number of years and going forward. We need to work with you so that we're making sure that funding doesn't just go to market housing like we've talked about, it goes to that affordable housing, that post recovery housing that is desperately needed to help those who are struggling the most because they understand, and I think this is the great thing about it, is that they have the data, the provincial government actually has their own data that shows when folks get into that housing with wraparound supports for those who have been chronically homeless, the provincial government actually saves money every year. They save money on their healthcare system, they save money on their justice system by having those folks in homes with supports instead of out on the streets. And so to me, this isn't actually a partisan issue, it's just an alignment issue. It's a recognition that I don't know if there was a point where all three orders of government over the last decade were taking this issue as seriously as we needed to, and so there were times where one of the three orders of government wasn't as focused on it, they were focused on something else.

I think this is the first time since I've ever been, you know, an elected representative that I actually genuinely believe all three orders of government see this need, see it as a crisis, and see it as immediate action needed. So I think with this current federal government, with this current provincial government, and with the new council that's now in place, this is our chance to really move this forward in a significant way because this isn't actually as complicated as we make it out to be. You build housing, you have the right staff supports to help respond to whatever that person's need is in their recovery journey, and then you get them into their own housing after they go through that journey or in certain, you know, in the extreme cases where some folks might be forever and always more in that higher need sort of like you would see in seniors care, some folks will go into long term care and that'll be the last stage of their journey. Even in housing like that, it's still better to have folks there. So I'm actually really optimistic about this and I will be pushing hard and I think we have all willing partners right now to make this happen.

Well, that's some good news there. It's good to hear. Another issue, though, for for Edmonton and surrounding communities, because let's face it, Edmonton is kind of a unique city in that we have so many satellite communities like, you know, Saint Albert Sherwood Park being the biggest, but also Fort Saskatchewan, the fastest growing. Beaumont. You've got Leduc, Niskus, Bruce Grove, Stony Plain.

You know, you there's there's always a little communities that are attached to Edmonton, and a lot of people who live in these communities might work in our city. But there's been, in some ways, a drawing back from some of those places when it comes to cooperation. Right? You you're you're well known as a politician in Edmonton that there's these organizations like, Edmonton Global or the municipalities associations that get together, and they do things for the metro area. It seems like people are drawing back away from those.

And that cooperation, you know, is pretty important, especially to Edmonton. You know, you don't wanna compete with everybody all the time. You wanna do some things cooperatively. Do you have thoughts about how you bring people back together for that plan?

Yes. I think finding sort of ways to open the door. And what I mean by that is that, this is an area where I would have some disagreements with the provincial government. They came in and actually dissolved the Edmonton Metro Region Board and there was no need to do that. The EMRB was incredibly successful and, yeah, was there occasionally disagreements amongst the 13 municipalities?

Absolutely. But you if you saw the work that they did and that they approved, things like the growth management plan, that by approving that plan saved all of the municipalities collectively $5,000,000,000 in infrastructure costs. Wow. That collectively, that saved 250 quarter sections of premium agricultural land. Losing that plan is actually bad for every municipality, and there might be some who, you know, were not a 100% on board with this because they were a little hesitant of certain density requirements, but Edmonton is the case study.

Any municipality in the region that's asking themselves, Well, why would we want to strive for higher density in newer neighborhood? You just look to us to say, Listen, if you're not planning this thoughtfully, you're going to end up paying way more. Your taxpayers will end up having to pay substantially more on their property taxes over time if you're not building thoughtfully. So long story short, the thing is the MRB is no longer, so now it's how do we bring everyone back the table? And so there have been some gatherings so far of the regional mayors to try to talk about how there is going to be continued collaboration.

One of the first things I did as a new mayor is I contacted every mayor in the region to talk to them one on one, find out what their needs were, and let them know how important it was and is for us to be working together and how Edmonton wants to support the region because at the end of the day, if we think we can go it alone, we're actually wrong. We cannot go it alone. Right. There was a great report back in 2015 or so called Be Ready or Be Left Behind, and in that report, what it showed is that if we were fighting each other or at least competing against one another to attract things like businesses into this region, we would all be worse off than if we went out as a collective to attract those businesses. And the reason is is that there's this thinking, well, oh, if give this to, you know, the county and I don't get it in the Edmonton boundary, well, that's just less money for us.

Well, yes, on that one specific business, that is true. But if you are competing as a collective, you actually have the opportunity to grow the overall pie that is available to the region. So instead of fighting over this small, you know, the scraps, you're fighting over the next five businesses, you're attracting 50 businesses to the region and you would far outnumber the number of businesses in your municipality than if you would if you were just competing for the scraps. And so I think there needs to be a reminder. That's been, you know, about a decade since that conversation, and not all the mayors were ones who were there in the past.

So I think, you know, we need to make sure we're sitting down, and this is something I've committed to as Mayor of Edmonton, is sitting down with the Regent and talking to them and saying, Listen, I know not everyone loved every aspect of the EMRB, they were always good, nothing will ever be perfect, but can we agree that by working together we stand to be far better as a region and in turn far better as a province? And as long as we can start from that point, we can start to find opportunities to work together again. And I'm making this a major focus of the work I'm going to be doing as mayor because, again, I know we can't do it alone. We can't do it alone even though we're the, you know, the big municipality in the region, but I also know that the other municipalities in the region can't do it without us either. We have a lot of the amenities and services that folks that might move to their municipality need in order to attract people or in order to attract those businesses.

So there is this connected relationship in a way that maybe doesn't even exist in Calvert because the way that our boundaries are set up, there is that like sort of direct connectivity. And so I'm excited about the opportunity to work together with our regional partners, and I get a sense having had the conversations with our regional mayors that everyone else sees it. It's the how. It's not if we should, it's how we should do that together. Right.

Yeah. And and that can be that can be a difficult thing. But as you say, if people are willing to work through it, that's the key. Now just to bring it back to a smaller look at housing and homes as realtors are, you know, basically the folks who help people find their forever home for a lot of people or at least their home for now. How would you define a home?

What makes a house into a home?

Oh my. So many so many things. Right? It's it's the people who are in that home. It's the community that surrounds that home, right?

It's, you know, someone that comes from the community league background before I was on council, it's all of the things around your your home too. Right? There's there's a lot of things that go into your home that make it a home. It's the it's the right bed. It's the right couch.

It's, you know, it's those little nuances. But but I actually find for myself, it's more about what do I have around me? Right? You know, where I live, I have a library right across the street, I have my grocery store right across, know, one of multiple grocery stores right across the street I can get. My dentist is a two minute walk away.

I've got lots of parks and schools around me and this is a place where, you know, my house when I first got it, you know, almost, I don't know, twenty years ago or so, is my home and I wouldn't trade it for the world. And I think that's so important to everyone is that they're looking for that same thing. They're looking for what they can do inside those four walls, but they also wanna know what they can do in and around that where that home is situated. Why, know, I mean, there's sure, there's lots of people in the world who love to live, you know, out outside, out in the wilderness and in a you know, on their big big acreage, but I think there's a lot more people who choose to move into a big city because they want to have those activities around them. Know, they want to be able to go out their front door, walk to the neighborhood park, have a school close for their kids, be able to go to different festivals and events, and so, you know, those are the types of things that make a home.

Well, it's interesting you mentioned that too because, you know, the advent of, you know, when people talk about 15 cities, which is meaning that within fifteen minutes of walking distance of where you live, you have all these amenities and places you can go with. And the city pays a big part in trying to facilitate that, right, to allow people to have those developments and to make it easy to to, you know, have those kind of businesses nearby residential thing. That those things can sometimes happen organically, but there's a lot the city can do to facilitate that. Right?

A 100%. And this is why we did such a large update to our zoning bylaw back in January 2024. Because if you go look at the old zoning bylaw, what you found is that as time evolved, it actually became more restrictive. So you think about, especially in Edmonton, you think about a lot of the communities that were built in the 1950s. And, you know, most of them don't have all of those same features intact, but you can see what it did look like.

You know, in a lot of communities in the 1950s, you had a lot of homes and then you often have that little strip mall that might have been in the middle of the community where you had your butcher, your pharmacist, or, you know, some of the day to day amenities you would need. And you have that because car ownership wasn't as high at the time and so people needed to sort of congregate closer to home to get what they needed. And then as the years went on, municipalities, Edmonton and almost every municipality in North America, actually created more restrictions. They created it where this is the only place you can build homes, and if you wanna build commercial entities, you build that here. And they they should never meet even though they used to meet in our cities in North America, you know, seventy or eighty years ago.

And, of course, in in European cities, they continue and have always been meeting together. And it was as we were going through an update in that zoning bylaw, we recognized we essentially made complete communities illegal through our regulations. Right? I mean, our rules wouldn't have allowed whiteout to happen anywhere else in the city until they were updated again. And so we said, well, why are we the ones restricting that choice?

If somebody wants to look to set up a business in an older neighbourhood like they used to have seventy years ago, why are we the ones to say no to that? Yes, we want to be thoughtful about certain, you know, regulations on certain things that shouldn't be a free for all, we're not talking about setting up an industrial business in the middle of a community, But if somebody wants to set up a pharmacy, if somebody wants to set up a local corner store or a little butcher shop, why is the municipality the one to say no? We should allow those choices to happen, and if the market wants it, well, they'll support it. And if the market doesn't want it, well, that business won't last very long, so you still need to be thoughtful. And so I'm so, you know, for as much as we talked about needing to make tweaks to how we're building housing in older neighborhoods, 98% of the zoning bylaw that was created back in 2024, we received no complaints about because it's given people more choice and more flexibility, and we're starting to see those more local corner stores bakeries and different things like and there are some communities where this has been allowed for a lot longer because of regulations.

You think about in the city of Edmonton, a spot like Ritchie, where at Ritchie, they have that corner, right, where you've got everything you could ever hope for. It is such a hub not just for those local residents but so many others who live somewhat close because they don't have that same choice in their own neighbourhood. Why shouldn't that be allowed to happen in every neighbourhood? Why like, I would love to have that same model in every neighbourhood because I want to have the choice to live more locally. Just like once in a while, I like to have the choice to jump into my car and go to Costco because I like to buy a lot of stuff and and bulk too.

So this isn't about and when the fifteen minute city conversation originally started, there were some who were saying, oh, this is about forcing people to live a certain way. It's actually the complete opposite. It's all about giving people more choice in how they want to live their daily lives. You should have spots close to home and if you want to jump in your car and drive to Southampton Common even as a West End resident, sure, go for it. Go to town, right?

Like that's what you get to do in a city that actually opens up regulations in a thoughtful way to allow for more opportunity to to enjoy your life.

Well, that's a great thing I think to to end this on, mister mayor. Know, I'm by the way, I'm a seventeen minute walk to the Ritchie Market,

so it's almost within We'll count it. We'll count it.

Yeah. We'll count that. It's it's a it's a great spot to be for sure. We wanna thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. The Realtors Association of Edmonton really appreciates it.

And, you thank you so much. You're early on in your your role as Mayor. We wish you all the best of luck because your success will be all of our city's success. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much for having me.