I could get behind an infill moratorium if and only if it was initiated to give time for setting up a design standards review board of some sort that would have input on design standards for infill housing separate and apart from single lot housing. There are ~some good examples of infill housing in Edmonton but they are vastly outnumbered by crap solutions -- about the same ratio of good design mid-rises to crap mid-rises. This trend is not good for Edmonton!
 
constance_chlore said:
So people are seriously considering voting for the candidate who, less than a week ago, called for a moratorium on infill? Have you lost your minds?

I think @Kosy123 had the correct take—it's probable that renewing the CRL is better than nothing, but frankly it should leave a very bitter taste in our mouths that we got pushed into this OEG deal without a chance to advocate for what matters to us as a city.
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Regardless of where one falls on the nature of this deal/vote and how the council members navigated it, voting for a candidate calling for a moratorium on infills is a non-starter. Cartmell also likes to portray himself as fiscally responsible, but his track record on council paints a very different picture. He will not be getting my vote.
 
constance_chlore said:
So people are seriously considering voting for the candidate who, less than a week ago, called for a moratorium on infill? Have you lost your minds?

I think @Kosy123 had the correct take—it's probable that renewing the CRL is better than nothing, but frankly it should leave a very bitter taste in our mouths that we got pushed into this OEG deal without a chance to advocate for what matters to us as a city.
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A moratorium is a pause. It's not stopping it forever. Stop being a drama queen. A moratorium will allow to fix what's broken. And with the rush to infill, a number of pieces are not working.
 
whattheheck said:
A moratorium is a pause. It's not stopping it forever. Stop being a drama queen. A moratorium will allow to fix what's broken. And with the rush to infill, a number of pieces are not working.
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I thought Coun. Paquette summed it up well after it was revealed Cartmell went ahead with his moratorium motion even after city legal said it violates MGA.

Cartmell went ahead with the motion, and rallied support from the public, knowing full well that infill moratoriums are outside of the municipal government’s purview.

“No matter how finely a councillor wants to cut the baloney, it was still legally ill-advised to even consider that motion,” said Paquette. “And, after eight years of experience, you’d hope someone would know that — especially if they are running for mayor.

“Imagine if we paused all the construction. That’s not just developers, that’s homeowners who want to build their homes again on the same properties. If you can imagine the sheer volume of people who would be affected, that could easily lead to class-action lawsuits for which Edmontonians would be on the hook.”
 
Infill will become one of the big themes of the upcoming election. It will be interesting to see how it all unfolds.
 
I realize this is better suited over in the Infill thread but...
whattheheck said:
A moratorium is a pause. It's not stopping it forever.
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So you're okay with possibly putting hundreds of construction/trades and related workers out of work?

whattheheck said:
A moratorium will allow to fix what's broken.
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How well did that work for renewable energy? Great for the UCP I guess.

whattheheck said:
Stop being a drama queen.
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Really!? This forum really needs a thumbs-down emoji.
 
by adding the renewables debate, you're conflating two different issues. that's disingenuous.

We need to ensure the right type of infill is going in. 8 plexes are nothing but future boarding houses. How are such structures supposed to help revitalize core communities? By making them transient? What will they look like in 20 years via absentee landlords etc. What's needed is family-friendly infill, built with good materials. Large windows. Buildings that don't look like cheap garbage with gravel covered yards (because the landlord doesn't want to have landscaping to maintain.)
 
By no means do we have to stop building infill indefinitely to change design standards. It's very obvious that the goal of the infill moratorium is to stop any infill from being built for as long as possible due to NIMBY sentiment. The only ones being disingenuous are the people implying that we can't "ensure the right type of infill is going in" without completely stopping any new construction across the city for who knows how long
 
whattheheck said:
by adding the renewables debate, you're conflating two different issues. that's disingenuous.

We need to ensure the right type of infill is going in. 8 plexes are nothing but future boarding houses. How are such structures supposed to help revitalize core communities? By making them transient? What will they look like in 20 years via absentee landlords etc. What's needed is family-friendly infill, built with good materials. Large windows. Buildings that don't look like cheap garbage with gravel covered yards (because the landlord doesn't want to have landscaping to maintain.)
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You seem to be engaging in the logical fallacy that the number of units and the quality of the building are intrinsically linked. I certainly don't know if 6- or 8-unit buildings are right, but to describe any 8-plexes as rooming houses suggest you likely don't know the answer either.
 
whattheheck said:
A moratorium is a pause. It's not stopping it forever. Stop being a drama queen. A moratorium will allow to fix what's broken. And with the rush to infill, a number of pieces are not working.
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There are always going to be policy gaps in any legislation or bylaw in any program. It doesn’t mean you put a moratorium on a program altogether, rather you incrementally improve the program from feedback from front line workers, consumers, researchers, etc. The same could be said for any number of government run programs or industries with legislative oversight. The comparison to renewable energy is a good one because it scared away investment, some of which will never return. Do the same thing with infill and some investment, both the good and bad, will never return. There is still plenty of amazing product being built across the inner parts of the city, just as there is cheaper product. That has always been true in the residential industry. Regardless of policy changes, variation in building standards will remain true even after if a moratorium were to be applied. Move the needle too far towards prescribed standards and you will end up with slower growth like Blatchford. I’d rather construction continue across a spectrum to offer affordability with incremental changes. Thankfully, the MGA doesn’t allow for a moratorium.
 
johnnyboy said:
I realize this is better suited over in the Infill thread but...

So you're okay with possibly putting hundreds of construction/trades and related workers out of work?


How well did that work for renewable energy? Great for the UCP I guess.


Really!? This forum really needs a thumbs-down emoji.
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Thousands of jobs.

The pause had 0 suggested timeline, which is irresponsible. Is it 2 months? 2 years?

And tens of millions of dollars from individual families and hundreds of millions from companies put at risk. You still pay property taxes while you wait, financing costs, company overhead, etc.

As a family currently designing a mid block infill, I wrote a scathing email to Cartmell about how we were at risk for tens of thousands of dollars in interest costs alone simply from a delay.

We would be first in line to help get a class action lawsuit going if his motion did somehow pass. Sadly though, damages would be paid out of city revenues (aka taxes…).
 
Be careful. This will be a key election issue. And watch out for those restrictive covenants. All because city hall got to sanctimonious on this issue. It's basic human political psychology.

Some 'Muricans didn't vote RepubliCON because they believe in everything that terrible party is about. It was, instead, their gut reaction to a progressive left that jumped the shark.

In the push for societal change, movement must be incremental. Otherwise, the people will turn. The growing opposition to infill is because of how fast the city moved.

And 'Inclusion', did you actually read what was proposed?

Here it is: "a temporary moratorium on all new mid-block infill projects in our city. We need to press pause. This doesn’t mean we’re walking away from growth or density. But it does mean we need to stop, listen, and fix what’s broken before we allow more of the same."

Nowhere was the suggestion to as you wrote: "put a moratorium on a program altogether,"

Please ensure your postings have truth in them.
 
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