Shaping the City - District Planning

District Planning is about changing the way we plan and support development. The intent is to move Edmonton towards The City Plan vision of a healthy, urban, climate resilient city where everyone enjoys easy access to amenities and services close to home.

Since a plan for every neighbourhood isn't feasible - Edmonton has over 300 neighbourhoods - The City Plan groups collections of neighbourhoods into 15 districts. District Planning streamlines our planning framework by making a plan for each district.

These plans will help guide development, infrastructure and amenity investment in each district. Developing the plans involved carefully reviewing and analyzing existing geographic plans and guidelines to determine if they should be kept, changed or retired.

District Planning is not about restricting movement, monitoring people or tracking an individual's carbon emissions. Districts will not be self-contained and people will continue to travel however they choose, to wherever they want in the city.

INFORMATION SESSIONS

Learn more about District Planning, the changes made to the draft District Policy and plans since late 2023, and how to participate in the upcoming public hearings. Attend a free, online public information and Q&A session on April 22, 23 or 24, 2024. Click here to sign up!

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Why District Planning?

Within The City Plan - Edmonton’s combined Municipal Development and Transportation Master Plan - there are five Big City Moves. These moves encompass the tangible and intentional areas of transformative change needed for Edmonton to realize the vision of becoming a healthy, urban, climate resilient city. 

One of these Big City Moves is to become a “Community of Communities”, which is about welcoming new residents and improving access to daily amenities and services. To help us get there, The City Plan introduced a new planning geography called districts. Districts are collections of diverse neighbourhoods across Edmonton and were the first step towards modernizing and changing the way Edmonton plans for the future. 

The District Planning project is implementing The City Plan’s direction at the district level by creating a District Policy, and plans for all 15 of Edmonton’s districts. The City Plan and existing plans and guidelines served as the primary sources used to create the District Policy and plans so they don’t introduce any new direction. 

Together the District Policy and plans illustrate how each district is intended to change and densify. The intention is to move Edmonton towards a city where everyone enjoys easy access to amenities and services within a short walk, bike, roll or transit ride from their home. 

However, districts are not meant to be self-contained. For some households, easy access could mean visiting other districts. 

District Planning is not about restricting movement, monitoring people or tracking an individual’s carbon emissions, and nothing will be put in place to do so. In fact, district plans will enable better access and movement throughout the city by supporting more transportation options within and between districts.

Benefits

For Edmontonians, the District Policy and plans will show how they can expect Edmonton and their neighbourhoods to change over time. They describe how the City is supporting more housing, businesses, amenities and transportation options in each district as we welcome more Edmontonians within our city’s current boundaries.

For businesses and the development and construction industry, the Policy and plans will be used to evaluate development proposals, such as rezonings, subdivisions and development permits, and show where development and redevelopment is encouraged. Both The City Plan and district plans create more opportunity for development in the redeveloping areas of the city (roughly inside the Anthony Henday), and direct larger developments to places called nodes and corridors. Nodes and corridors are the areas The City Plan expects we will see the most redevelopment, including taller buildings, new jobs and homes.

For City Administration and City Council, District Planning is critical to streamlining and modernizing Edmonton’s planning system. It will provide a consolidated source of policies to evaluate development proposals and inform infrastructure investment and design decisions, such as for roadways, parks and transit. 

This will facilitate a more efficient development review process by reducing the number of plans that the City must review in order to make planning decisions. A more efficient review process reduces barriers to housing and businesses and encourages investment in our city - a key goal of both The City Plan and the Edmonton Economic Action Plan. 

District Plans & Zones

The District Policy, plans and the new Zoning Bylaw each play a role in guiding future development to achieve The City Plan vision. Zoning determines what can be developed on a site today, whereas the District Policy and plans set the vision for how communities will grow and change over time. 

Development Planners will consult the relevant district plan and associated District Policy direction as required when they must exercise discretion to consider a development permit. If a landowner wants to build something that is not permitted under the current zoning for their site, they will still need to apply for a rezoning as they do now. 

City planners will use the District Policy and plans (and any other relevant statutory plan) to inform their review of the rezoning proposal. Based on that review, City planners will provide a recommendation to City Council on whether or not the rezoning should be approved. 

City Council then makes the final decision at a public hearing.  District plans won’t change any aspects of the rezoning process, such as public notification, engagement or participation at the public hearing. 

The District Planning project is not proposing to rezone any land across the city. This means that your underlying zone will not change if the District Policy and plans are approved by City Council.  

However, through a separate project, the City is exploring targeted rezonings within some of the 19 nodes and corridors identified as Priority Growth Areas in The City Plan to help activate growth and development in these important areas (see item 7.4).

Communities and businesses in the affected areas will have an opportunity to provide input on the proposed rezonings before they go to City Council Public Hearing for a decision.

Nodes & Corridors

Building and maintaining a city is expensive. As a city grows outwards and new taxpayers help pay for its costs, there are also new roads to plow and pave, new pipes to connect and new parks to mow.

By growing and investing in existing areas of the city, new residents can make use of existing infrastructure and facilities. The City Plan seeks to shift how Edmonton will grow, targeting 50% of growth to happen in redeveloping areas (roughly inside the Anthony Henday). Growth will still continue in planned communities at the edges of the city’s boundaries but development and redevelopment will be encouraged and supported in areas known as nodes and corridors. 

Nodes are centres of activity and typically include mass transit stations and important destinations. Corridors are centred around major roads, providing connections within and across districts, and are destinations themselves. The City Plan describes the different types of nodes and corridors in Edmonton, including how big they are and where they are in the city (see pages 97 to 104 ). 

District plans show the boundaries of the nodes and corridors (map) within each district. The District Policy guides where different building heights should receive support within the node and corridor areas. 

If you live within a node or corridor, you can expect to see redevelopment in your area over time including construction, potential changes in traffic, and a greater mix of housing and services to accommodate the daily needs of Edmontonians. The Policy and plans will guide where the City should prioritize infrastructure investment to help support the anticipated increased development and redevelopment in these areas. 

For more information on how the City is managing its growth, see the Growth Management Framework.

Future Work

Throughout the project we heard feedback on a number of issues that fell outside the scope of District Planning. These included:

• Concerns with some City Plan direction

• Calls to take more action on climate change and housing affordability, and 

• The need to address other local concerns in neighbourhoods experiencing change and redevelopment
  

We are using this feedback to help identify other projects to add to our work plan after district plans are adopted. We recognize a lot of these issues are complex and we need to do more work to identify what role the City has in addressing them. Then, where appropriate, develop dedicated projects to address the issues within the City’s jurisdiction. These future work priorities will be reported to Council in 2024 after the District Policy and plans go to public hearing.

After the District Policy and plans are adopted, and more work is done on these issues, new policy and information can be added to the district plans as appropriate. This will help steer the City towards its goals and plan for the next phase of The City Plan - the 1.5 million population horizon.

DISTRICTS AND 15-MINUTE COMMUNITIES

Edmonton's communities are its lifeblood and will continue to provide us with the opportunity to turn our time and attention to things that really matter, like a connection with each other and to the greater good.

QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS?

If you have any questions, concerns or want more information on re-zoning and district planning in Ward sipiwiyiniwak, please contact us at sarah.hamilton@edmonton.ca.