Nah. That’s not at all how the world works.

Honestly, Blatchfords biggest problem is 1) itself. 2) westmount. 3) our downtown.

1) so little is built still. No local retail. Poorly planned LrT. Bad connectivity to surrounding areas. Ugly/sketch surroundings (kingsway/superstore). Pricey. Too car centric/lack of differentiation.

2) this is basically blatchford, but better. Same pricing. Better by 90% of measures. Better LRT access soon too.

3) there’s so much land in Oliver and downtown. So the demand for all the medium density they want to build here just doesn’t exist imo. We have thousands of units to still build and fill in better areas of our core. Nait feels like the only draw to blatchford over downtown/Oliver
I think in general, there are a lot of older areas in the city that still have quite a bit of potential and room for infill, so that does make it harder for Blatchford to grow faster.

Oliver and downtown are more central and Westmount, among other areas, is a well established area. So it is hard for Blatchford to compete against all that now.
 
I think in general, there are a lot of older areas in the city that still have quite a bit of potential and room for infill, so that does make it harder for Blatchford to grow faster.

Oliver and downtown are more central and Westmount, among other areas, is a well established area. So it is hard for Blatchford to compete against all that now.
Exactly. And count in all the continuing new builds in sprawling suburbs. Stop that development and blatchford likely attracts at least some of those buyers looking for new builds.

Our sprawl continues to hurt us…
 
I'm surprised to see popcorn ceilings in a new development like this....I thought that was out of fashion for buyers.
Sadly I think the builder (Mutti homes) might have chosen that to make up for inexperienced drywall tradesmen, since it's easier to finish a ceiling with texture rather than make it perfectly flat.

I went to check out these two showhomes on the weekend with my partner, we were not impressed with the build quality. We counted at least 10 drywall finishing issues in each one, very amateur work with poorly sanded corners, edge tape lifting and even a few pen-sized holes!

We also saw in one of them the upstairs window didn't line up with the wall (either the window or the wall was sloping) so they had to add an extra wedge piece in the casing. You can even see it in one of the photos (top corner of the window):

E4370791_38.jpg

.
.Many of the doors were jamming as well, and some of the rooms still had construction junk on the ground which just looks unprofessional in an open house.

We also chatted with a resident afterward, he said there were lots of quality issues with the Mutti builds, one of them they are even re-doing the front facade.


It wasn't all negative though, I liked that they had a lot of garage suites in their builds and the floorplans were nice. They are also setup with the geothermal heat, which is not the case for all the builds apparently.

We checked out the only other open house (Landmark) and they had an electric heat-pump system instead. Still a good system, but not exactly low-carbon until our electricity grid moves off natural gas generation which won't be for several decades. They didn't seem to be setup for solar either. (Edit: they do have solar installed so they would only rely on the grid when conditions are poor) But overall the build quality was MUCH better on the Landmark homes, as expected with an experienced builder.
 
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Exactly. And count in all the continuing new builds in sprawling suburbs. Stop that development and blatchford likely attracts at least some of those buyers looking for new builds.

Our sprawl continues to hurt us…

or our managed growth allows us to maintain affordability? do you think prices will go down if you restricted keswick's development?
 
^Just a note on electric heat-pump: If you don't make your own power (solar on roof), you can buy solar off the grid is always an option. Costs more yes, but you have a choice of retailers and helps expand our solar capacity.
 
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Exactly. And count in all the continuing new builds in sprawling suburbs. Stop that development and blatchford likely attracts at least some of those buyers looking for new builds.

Our sprawl continues to hurt us…
But its not as if a gun is being held to peoples heads and they are being forced to buy there. A major reason they are doing so is because of price.

It has been also already been pointed out a number of times by others that if Blatchford were more price competitive it would do much better.
 
My understanding is demand for housing and living in north central Edmonton also is pretty low compared to other parts of the city. It's not like if you suddenly curb sprawl demand spikes at Blatchford. And I'm all for curbing sprawl.
 
We checked out the only other open house (Landmark) and they had an electric heat-pump system instead. Still a good system, but not exactly low-carbon until our electricity grid moves off natural gas generation which won't be for several decades. They didn't seem to be setup for solar either. But overall the build quality was MUCH better on the Landmark homes, as expected with an experienced builder.

Each of the Landmark homes come with 20-some solar panels installed on the roof and are supposed to be net-zero. My understanding is that a builder had to show that its homes were net-zero if they wanted to not be attached to the geothermal system.
 
But its not as if a gun is being held to peoples heads and they are being forced to buy there. A major reason they are doing so is because of price.

It has been also already been pointed out a number of times by others that if Blatchford were more price competitive it would do much better.
or our managed growth allows us to maintain affordability? do you think prices will go down if you restricted keswick's development?
My understanding is demand for housing and living in north central Edmonton also is pretty low compared to other parts of the city. It's not like if you suddenly curb sprawl demand spikes at Blatchford. And I'm all for curbing sprawl.
i definitely don’t think it’s a simple 1-2 switch. It’s complex with a lot of factors. But let’s look at some of the top reasons people speak to living in new suburbs and not centrally:

- new homes with modern finishes
- close to quality amenities like rec centres, modern schools, good playgrounds
- access to shopping and retail (windemere currents, winterburn shopping areas, SEC)
- cheaper (artificially so)
- more housing varieties and price points. TONS of townhomes and apartments in new suburbs. Not just large lot homes or high rises, or low quality 70s walkups, or pricey big infills. Way easier to find a home you like in new suburbs vs one off infills or mature neighborhood resales.

And people don’t like central because:
- concerns about safety and crime
- lots of low income housing neighborhoods that have lacked reinvestment - buildings, schools, parks.
- smaller, less modern schools
- lack of rec centres (or just lower quality ones)
- little inventory that’s not pricey or old
- infrastructure quality in central communities vs masterplanned suburbs is less beautiful/attractive
- so-so main streets, downtown, and central attractions.
- lack of highly desirable transit

Now, at a micro scale, stopping 1 new community today, doesn’t fix anything. But for decades we’ve allowed more and more sprawl. And it’s slowly deteriorated our core. Imagine all the money going into rec centres, transit, schools, and retail outside of the henday being reinvested into mature infill and redevelopment projects instead.

And the affordability question is complex. Sprawl likely does keep home prices lower. But it doesn’t keep taxes lower. And it hurts service quality. And it necessitates car ownership for 80% of our city (which over 10 years is 100k per car, or the equivalent to buying a 400k home with 2 cars vs 600k home with 1 car). And it hurts local business success to the advantage of chain/big box corporations. And it detracts from the vibrancy and success of our downtown and main streets, which scares off investments/jobs.

No one wanted to live in the area now called keswick 30 years ago. People only want to live there now because we’ve spent billions on the henday, moved 80,000 people to that area, built schools, allowed a ton of private retail to develop, etc. I bet blatchford would have pretty strong appeal if we put that sort of money in LRT, improving the communities around blatchford, attracting more retail and investment into downtown, Oliver 124,118.

But when people are spending 400k on average quality townhomes, in areas with bad traffic, overflowing schools, and not a lot of culture/unique appeal, I don’t think it’s because those places are inherently the best. I think it’s because 2000 of those homes came up for sale in that community while 20 came up in a central neighborhood. If we stopped building new suburbs and saw 2000 homes built in blatchford, I don’t think people just wouldn’t buy them. We’ve just created the conditions to make blatchford uncompetitive.

Increase the taxes on new homes in new suburbs so those communities stop being tax negative, then we’ll maybe actually see the redevelopment centrally that we need.
 
^ very insightful comment @thommyjo, I agree with everything you said. It goes back to the idea of that urban sprawl is essentially just a massive Ponzi Scheme, which artificially make low density suburban living seem cheaper and more desirable. We need to rethink our tax schemes from who's land is worth more, to who is actually consuming the most of the government's resources. That would immediately shift the affordability advantage of suburban living, in favour of urban living. Which is more sustainable both environmentally and economically. It's crazy to me that so called "fiscal conservatives" tend to be such massive fans of car centrism and sprawl, despite it being one of the biggest money pits for governments. If conservative politicians were actually serious about reducing government spending and reducing taxes, they'd be building public transit everywhere and reforming zoning bylaws and tax schemes everywhere.
 
This actually segues into UCP's throne speech in the fall wanting 10 million people in Alberta. To achieve this government would be right to encourage or even support infill and development of brownfield sites. This is because the UCP hears regularly from their rural constituents concerns about sprawl eating up good farmland. I think urbanists and rural folk might have some commonalities here.
 
This actually segues into UCP's throne speech in the fall wanting 10 million people in Alberta. To achieve this government would be right to encourage or even support infill and development of brownfield sites. This is because the UCP hears regularly from their rural constituents concerns about sprawl eating up good farmland. I think urbanists and rural folk might have some commonalities here.
This is an angle urbanists should be taking more and more. Farmers don't want their farmland taken away to make room for cookie-cutter suburbia.
 

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