Edmonton changed its zoning to allow more homes in existing neighborhoods, and Alberta has now given the city three months to undo those reforms. The fight, reported by Global News in “Edmonton Mayor Pushes Back as Alberta Orders Reversal of Infill Housing Rules,” targets changes that expanded housing options and removed parking mandates. Norm Van Eeden Petersman is joined by Dear Winnipeg author Michel Durand-Wood and Strong Towns chief technical advisor Edward Erfurt to examine why those reforms triggered such a fierce backlash and whether the sudden jump in larger infill means the rules went too far or simply exposed demand that had been bottled up.
What if we've actually built neighborhoods where opposing new neighbors is the rational thing to do. Is that what's happened in a lot of our places? I'm Norm with Strong Towns, and this Upzone, a podcast where we talk about things that are unfolding in the news, and we think about them from a Strong Towns perspective and try to upzone them, think about them more deeply to understand those bigger forces that are impacting our places, and this week we're going to head up to Edmonton, Alberta, where a fight over infill housing has actually turned into a showdown between the provincial government and city hall.
In an article published by Global News on October 8, reporter Karen Bartko covers the controversy in a story with the title "Edmonton Mayor Pushes Back as Alberta Orders Reversal of Infill Housing Rules. The article describes how Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has ordered Edmonton to roll back its zoning reforms that made it easier to build multiple homes in established residential neighborhoods. The premier says the city's approach has gone too far, pointing to concerns about parking, property values, infrastructure capacity, and the character of existing neighborhoods.
Interestingly, these changes introduced in 2024 had actually gone through a municipal election cycle and had been affirmed, you could say, by the composition of a council that was returned to office in 2025 that was willing to uphold and even continue to build upon the reforms that had been introduced on parking requirements, on the number of units per lot that were accepted, all of these different types of things, and yet the province has stepped in, and so the mayor, of course, sees things quite differently. He argues that preventing housing from being built in our existing neighborhoods, doesn't just make the demand for housing disappear.
Instead, it pushes that development outward, requiring more roads and more pipes, more infrastructure that taxpayers will have to maintain for generations. And so, how do we resolve this challenge? How do we deal with these pressures, especially the political gamesmanship that comes with it. Well, one of the ways that we need to grapple with this comes from an article that Michel Durand-Wood, one of our guests today, wrote a number of years ago on his Dear Winnipeg blog. It's called "He Ain't NIMBY, meaning not in my backyard. He ain't NIMBY.
He's my brother, and in it, Mitch offered a perspective that I've found to be helpful in this, where we build neighborhoods where everyone needs a car to be able to get anywhere. Adding more neighbors can genuinely feel like a burden. You get more traffic, more competition for parking, and more pressure on the things that people depend on. But if we can turn the corner to make our places more walkable. Those same new neighbors actually end up becoming a real benefit. They might help support your favorite local corner store, your local cafe. They might help boost public services in the area. In other words, maybe the problem isn't simply that people resist change.
Maybe it's that the way that we've built our cities has made change feel like something to fear or even rally against, rather than something that could make our lives better. And that brings us back to Edmonton, when the government steps in to protect neighborhoods from specific types of changes. After all, change is a constant. Newton's going to catch up with all of us. What exactly is it that we are trying to stop if we're stopping change, and what are we trying to protect? And crucially, as Edmonton Council is dealing with now, what are the long-term costs of the protection efforts that the province is introducing here? And so we're going to explore this with Michel Durand-Wood and Edward Erfurt.
Edward Erfurt is the chief technical advisor at Strong Towns, he is an expert in so many different areas of architecture and urban design, and those practical realities of trying to navigate these change making processes in our communities, as well as an advocate for our Housing-Ready Toolkit and other tools that we've created to help cities grapple with ways in which they can encourage more neighborhood investment, and then we have Michel Durand-Wood, who's also coming back to Upzoned. He's the author of the Dear Winnipeg blog and the new book "You'll Pay for This: How We Can Afford a Great City for Everyone Forever. And so, Edward and Mitch, welcome to Upzoned.
Thanks, Norm. Happy to be here.
Hey, Norm. Pleasure.
Now we pivoted hard to take up this article because were going to actually talk about a highway campaign and our efforts to keep up the infrastructure in various parts of the U.S. And then this came across my desk, and I was "We've got to talk about this. And Edward, starting with you, Strong Towns has been interesting. In the work that Medicine Hat, Alberta was doing, as well as having some great council members in Edmonton with Ashley Salvador and Michael Jans, who have been great longtime Strong Towns advocates in their community. And in this context, my back got up. But let's talk about the article. What did you notice? What were some of the things that immediately stood out?
Yeah, well, I'm definitely outnumbered here because I'm not a Canadian on the podcast today, and I always find it interesting to dabble in Canadian planning because, like many things with our shared border, there are a lot of similarities but a lot of differences. The thing that I found so interesting with this article is that yeah, when were working in Medicine Hat, they were struggling to figure out all of these things. Staff were very concerned. They had looked at what are the transitions that would occur with buildings.
How do we fit rear yard cottages on some of our lots, and even in the built-out neighborhoods, the people that were most outspoken against all of the zoning changes at the city were the ones that were built on brand new lots that were built out to like 80 90% like the lots that are so tight you couldn't even put a swing set in the backyard, so you weren't nothing else was ever going to happen there. So I found that interesting.
And then when I saw this article, so knowing how thoughtful all of those planners are in their work, I saw this article and said, "My gosh, if this happened in the U.S. where all of a sudden like a governor came in and told like a major city, the only place where development is happening in your state that hey stop we don't like the codes you passed two years ago stop doing those we wouldn't know what to do like we have we have property rights we have things in the works we've set our comp plan up for these pieces and then like when you say it, it says stop.
But what is the alternative? do we have to repeal back to that original code? So my mind just exploded with this, and that's why I think it was so shocking. And I brought it up to you, Norm, and we've got to get on and talk about this piece because this especially for our American audience, it's going to feel similar, but this would be jarring for any of our American cities.
Well, I think I think it's jarring for Canadian cities as well, and especially like I think they gave him three months to roll it back. Like that's that's a very fast timeline in municipal politics for any. You can't get a zoning determination. Yeah, you can't get a zoning determination in three months. like you can't get anything done in three months, and you're gonna overhaul the entire zoning by like it's it's yeah no. This I think as big a deal as this would be in the U.S.
It's a big deal in Canadas well, and it's-not to get too deep into Canadian politics, but the Alberta provincial government, particularly, is surprising because they've been particularly vocal about making sure the federal government doesn't impede on their area of jurisdiction, and so this a little bit of a, an ironic, an ironic position to take, but
we're we're familiar with that here, and it is when you when working in Alberta, it is a very local focused government hands off province, and thisn't like some of the state preemptions we've had in the U.S. are okay, like in Florida, they said home office, home occupation cannot be an outlawed use. Okay, so when you think about the impact, initially it's frantic, but okay, so we have the accountants and we have the real estate agents. They can have their home office. That's a small increment, but to in those types of state preemptions, maybe not so big of a deal. But this really heavy handed, and yeah, I don't know how it when we think about these things.
I don't even know what laws like how. And when I look at all the bylaws for these cities, there's public hearings that have to occur, and then every planner wants public engagement. And the previous regulations that were adopted went through all of that at a local level, and they were they didn't just come out of the blue. They just didn't come out of the housing crisis. The federal government, the Canadian government, compelled all these cities to do this zoning as part of the housing accelerator program, so cities could get money to build more housing.
Yeah, yeah, the Housing Accelerator Fund yeah exactly came with it was a bunch of federal money for housing development and it cities wanted it they it came with strings attached and those strings were essentially upzone your cities to allow up to four units as of right everywhere now it was relax your parking
requirements as well was another essential one and now the province of Alberta has told Edmonton, Edmonton was winning awards, from strong towns and from other places of like their Open Option Parking policy in 2020 was fantastic. We did a session on what they introduced because not only did they understand the language of parking, but they also understood the policy of it. And so instead of saying we are getting rid of parking, they said we are creating open options for parking, and you can determine as a property owner what you think the market requirement in your area is going to be for the amount off-street parking that you need to provide.
In the meantime, we're going to create the opportunities. this was 2020, this was early days, and we took it up and said this exactly what we're talking about, and now it's rolling those things back and undoing that, and turning up a nose at the federal government, which had previously been, and continues to say, do these things, and then now the premier is telling Edmonton, nope, don't, and setting up a bigger showdown. And this the that challenge that I think our local conversations are always grappling with. How do we stay out of mom and dad fighting? How do we keep ourselves in a situation where we just like just quietly, discreetly introduce changes and get them to move forward?
And that can be a massive, massive need here. And want touch on Michael Jans is a council member. He's also a Strong Towns member in Edmonton, and he would he responded to me a while ago where I'd said, hey, this allows from a single-detached lot with single home on it, up to eight homes were being allowed in some areas, and so within that five to eight-unit category, there was actually a lot of the city where you couldn't build five to eight-units, but if you were within a distance of transit, you had that option.
And from a Strong Towns perspective, I've grappled with it of hey, that lift from like a single home on a lot to now eight-units or eight homes next right next in the same space feels jarring. Unless I accept, which I think is quite reasonable that we have artificially capped the amount of land that could be used for housing and created these artificial constraints. And then, of course, we're going to blow by that as soon as the restriction is lifted. Mitch, you've had to grapple with that. or Winnipeg has been working at its own rules on this. Calgary's had some of their rules rolled back.
Is it just that eightplexes make convenient punching bags for people that get really riled up about this? Maybe that neighbor immediately next to it never intended for that to be the case for their neighbors to be able to look like a home like that looks like that. But it does seem that's become the lightning rod, even though the bigger goal of widespread upzoning is one that I think more people are generally supportive of.
Well, I think the eight-units is an easy thing to target, but if it was at six units, that would be the target, right, or seven, or whatever, and because it comes down to we have zoning rules that are that need to be precise, or they don't need to, but they are precise, and so they have to you have to cut off somewhere, right? And Edmonton chose eight-units, Winnipeg is at four units, but there is a cut off somewhere. But it in every possible way, it's it's an artificial cutoff, right? Cities are a lot more organic than that, or at least they used to be.
When you look at pre-World War II neighborhoods in any city, you'll see that there are single-family homes, or duplexes, or fourplexes, or sixplexes. There's small apartment blocks, 12 units. on my on my own street, there's there's single-family homes, duplexes. There's a church immediately besides some single-family homes, right? There's just a huge variety of building types and shapes and sizes, and so I think it's not. I don't think sticking on whatever the number is as oh that's the problem. It shouldn't have been eight. It should have been seven or it should have been six or whatever the number is. I don't think that's that's the actual issue. I think the actual issue is a combination of things, of course.
But one of the things I think that is pretty salient to me is that the financial aspect never enters the conversation, and so essentially we're talking about a false choice, right? We're talking about a choice between changing your neighborhood, allowing change, and not allowing change. But that's not actually the choice you have, right? The choice you have is allowing change or abandoning 60% of your infrastructure, right? That is that is exactly what the. Actual choices, right? And when you said like maybe single-family homes was an artificial limit, yes and no, right? You can you can have single-family homes. You can have a neighborhood made up exclusively of single-family homes.
That is fine, and it's fine for a community to decide that for themselves to want that. But you have to be realistic about the level of infrastructure that can support, right? And so, if you're going to have a neighborhood full of just single-family homes, you have to accept that means it's probably just going to be gravel roads, it's going to be well water and septic fields and volunteer fire departments. And so, you have we have in a lot of places in North America we have single-family homes, but we have a very high intensity of infrastructure. We have paid fire departments. We have paved roads. We have municipal water and sewer. All of this, unaffordable at that level of intensity.
And so the choice is: Are we going to increase the intensity to match the level of infrastructure, or do we reduce the infrastructure to match the level of intensity? That's the actual choice, but nobody's given that choice, right? We're we're given the choice of intensify or don't, but never the other reality of yeah, otherwise you abandon your infrastructure,
and no, that is not in any of the department pieces that people are thinking about in cities, let alone the public. So when I go to cities and I talk to them, they all have read Mitch. They've all read your book. They all talk the articles, and they're "Yeah, we,. And I talk to the public works directors, and they're pulling their hair out that there's not enough money to maintain everything needs to be maintained, and then I talked to finance officers. Said, "Don't worry about it. We balance the budget just to further make this out.
I talked to the planners, and they're "Well, that's really not our role. We have the use standards. Are we allowed to have this thing? can we put a car dealership here, or does it have to be an office building? So we check that off the box, and the planning commission does that. It's in the comp plan. Then the next thing: do we have enough trees? Do we have enough parking spaces? Have we set this like it's the performance standards from a physical form? Okay, the planners will check that off, and they'll debate whether it's a 10 foot or 15 foot setback, or if there'll be six trees or four trees, it'll be that like debate, maybe a variance in it.
But then, when it comes to the third part of the projects, do these projects generate a profit not for the developer but for the city, or in other words, are we able to generate enough productivity on that land use decision that will support all the promises we said as a community that we're going to do? We're going to take care of the streets and the pipes and have police and a beautiful park. That discussion on that is absent in all local governments and even the few, and there are a couple of them out there. I know Fate, Texas does this. A few of them have added that as the third leg of their development decision. It's the short leg.
It's the one that always gets. But you always hear in the meetings, oh, but this going to be this brand, that use. We've always wanted that use, so we're willing to take a little haircut and a shortage because we get the cool use. Or oh, this one's going to provide a better performance standard. It's going to be greener, it's going to be lower, it's going to have more of something. So it's already if it doesn't generate a profit, but we have those losses in every project.
So it is a foreign thing, and I don't think I say that because the public clearly doesn't make that connection, because the way that we do our budgeting and we talk about city municipal budgets, but then also at a staff level, they are ill-equipped to have that conversation because there's nobody at City Hall that's responsible for that productivity component of land use.
I would argue that's that is City Council's responsibility, and I think that you're right. The discussion is largely absent in a lot of places, and I don't think it's it's nefarious. I think you just you don't know what you don't know, and until it gets shown to you, you don't ask the questions. And even once you do ask the questions, it's it's hard and it's messy stuff, and it's and it's difficult to get through. But I think also just the entire process has a misalignment of incentives. Right?
There's a short-term versus long-term at play all the time, so it's hard for a current council to look at hey, I can get you a Dunkin' Donuts, awesome, cool. that's an immediate an immediate positive. For example, not ragging on Dunkin' Donuts, but but then but then the. The long-term liability is so far beyond the current term of counsel that it's a little bit harder to bring that into the present and it and it takes a it takes a really like a deep understanding of what you're deciding from a financial point to recognize the present value of what of those liabilities, but
yeah, what city council members know are the 12 angry people to council meeting, or the 100 people protesting outside, or when they're asked to go in their community and next door, the land use decision they did that is the policy they set forward ends up there's a little tiny house on a big lot, and then next to it is this giant construction site that meets all the current standards, but feels out of place. And I see this time and time again communities. We miss what that next increment of development is, and because we miss that subtlety of development, because we've forgotten we're now several generations out of the traditional development pattern of incrementally growing and innovating as we go.
This jarring and unexpected, and it leads to an enormous backlash. And it just doesn't matter what numbers we have, mrs. Smith's neighbor is twice the size, 12 times the units, less grass than what she has next door, and it is so out of place that you get enough of that going on. There is this enormous backlash. I find it amazing that the groups of neighbors in this community have been able to go so high up into politics to get like the big stick to come down. That fascinates me too.
I think also part of it too is interesting is that people who, again, you say that something's out of place. Is it out of place? It's out of place for what we know now. It wouldn't have been out of place 100 years ago, and trying to come back to that is going to be messy. But again, I think it comes back down to again, we're giving people the wrong choice or a false choice of you can have this change or you can't or you don't have it, but it's not really that. It's have this change or you have this other different change that is also going to be pretty painful, right?
When a pipe bursts and we don't have money to fix it, or when the road disintegrates into dust and we can't do anything about it, those have real impacts on people's lives as well, and on and importantly on their property values. The thing that people are worried about in a lot of cases, these have real impacts, but they're not being presented as what the actual alternative choice is.
I don't see the pipe failing in front of my house.
Yeah,
with the public works director pulling their hair out because it's a million dollar fix that we don't have the money for, but I do see the three-story, eight-unit apartment building being built next door to my house. We just we don't talk in those terms or share that in a in a really transparent way with our citizens, and I don't think we really equipped our staff to talk in those ways either, because they fall into the trap of trying to chase density, trying to chase numbers, when it really is way more sophisticated.
It makes me wonder because it the premier's remark said that the two primary things that she was seeking to address in terms of a broad category of harms to homeowners was falling property values and the absence or the contest over available street parking, and it's interesting to me. One that street parking is just this like given that it's the same thing as getting your garbage picked up every Tuesday is that the street in front of you is yours to use for parking your stuff, and you don't even need to use your garage anymore because you can use that for all your stuff.
But the street will always be there, and so it's this given that parking service is going to be maintained, and anything that encroaches upon it is going to receive provincial pushback. But there's an element of like property values. I just I struggle to really wrap my mind around the way in which realtors or others are telling people that their property is worth less when the underlying land becomes far more valuable because it's now able to be turned into an eightplex or a fourplex or into a large single-detached house.
It has this much broader range of what can be done with it, and I have yet to see compelling evidence of real property value decreases where infill is permitted, where neighborhood investment is allowed to occur. But is there a third category which is almost like the private enjoyment of a parcel of land that feels like it's actually? There, so I remember having a couple of conversations with people from Edmonton. They're "I just can't sit in my backyard anymore. No, I said, "Have you considered like some landscaping? you can't immediately put in mature shade trees, but you can do some things to like adjust to changing circumstances.
But for them, it felt deeply personal that up until just recently, when Widow Smith died, or I shouldn't use Smith because that's the name of the premier. So, Widow McCauley, when she had to sell and or died, and her estate sold off the property, and now all of a sudden it goes from being a quiet leafy spot to a construction zone. Like people really, that is that is a once in a lifetime change, where they're like not accounting for the fact that back in the day that's what the cows felt like when the new neighbors moved in, when the farm fields were developed.
But I see this in my community as well that like mentality of I moved here for X, even as the rest of the city grew up around me, and even as I enjoyed all of the benefits of being in a in a maturing city, improved access to transit, people not being in my way because they were on the bus, and so it meant there was more space for me when I was driving. In that context, it really feels like people are "I've got it really good, and maybe that's one of the subtexts of what we're hearing in Edmonton. They're "I've got it so good.
I have a brand new sports arena within what 10 minutes driving for me to get there. I still have street parking, even though that's a rarity in other parts of the city,. And I don't have to live downtown. And now the city is, or the city is going to ruin all that. How do we, Mitch? You live in an inner city neighborhood, and you have people that are staunch defenders of what I would call a suburban-style of life in the heart of the city. Maybe that's the mismatch here, and that's where the province has said, "Hey, that's where our voters are. We're going to lean into this and stoke the fires rather than just allow things to mature over time.
Well, I think he said, "is the is this the subtext? I would argue it's not the subtext; it's the text, right? That and it's completely understandable because, we have all of these people in our cities who have been sold essentially a false bill of goods, right? They've been told you can have country living with urban amenities, and that's what they had, and that's what they've had for a long time. The reality is that's not sustainable. We cannot keep that up for any sustained amount of time, and so that has to end, right? And so for all of the people who bought into this dream, it's completely understandable that they be upset about it.
It's completely understandable that they don't want to give it up. I completely agree. Like that's a completely rational response. They got ripped off. They're they're getting ripped off. But again, checked
That check don't cash.
But again, this idea that like we can just if we just zone it out of existence, then the problem goes away. No, it's just that the different problem pops up, and so we can't. I don't know. Like again, it's not that it's not that it's unreasonable to feel that way. It's completely reasonable to feel that way.
Yeah, because we, I tell folks like that. I go and I'll go to and speak in a historic city or area that has the full grid and all that transitional piece, and they're in this friction point, and I start to look, and I don't look at the place, the forum. I listen to what they're describing to me. I ask staff how are the how do you code this stuff? What are all the layers that you have there? And what they describe to me is the suburban development pattern, and every when I say suburban development pattern, everybody has that image of all the single-family homes sprawling across the landscape with the isolated mall.
That is the built form of that, but the underlying land development patterns, the rules, the regulations, the zoning, the way we process permitting, is this idea that we're going to process stuff to a finished state. That we have figured it out.
That we are so smart in the planning world today, and our councils are so bright that they know the pulse of the community, and we've collected enough input from everybody in the community that we are setting the standard for development, that we're going to get it right, and what I think is happening here in Edmonton, where the backlash is the backlash is not for the eight-unit apartment building and the change, the backlash is this conflict of our development pattern, so you can have suburban sprawl that is very dense, but it's still following this transition. And when you see the units jump up so high from a single-family to a six-unit right next door, what that's telling me is.
Pent up demand. I probably would dive in and find that maybe there's some really complex regulatory hurdles that we put in at City Hall. Things that we control that we want to see in those permitting processes, so we drive that up. There's probably also some banking pieces that are in there that are incentivizing or subsidizing that type of building, that's not allowing that increment, that next increment of either form or density or setback to match those neighborhoods, and at least the work that we're trying to do at Strong Towns is to undo that mentality, that idea that everything's going to be built to a finished state-that not only will transition occur around us.
So yeah, Norm, you're going to have people building up around you, but you yourself on your own property would be empowered not just to plant trees, but maybe you want to do that addition. Maybe you want to build up on your property a little bit more like your neighbors, but hopefully we're doing that all together.
Yeah, that's that's a good point that you raise about, like I said, like the level of bureaucracy that's involved that might be holding certain forms back. we have a development process or zoning process or an application process that generally the bureaucracy, the paperwork is the same to add a single unit as it is to build an eight-unit, right? And that like that has a cost, and it has a it has a it has a cost that has to be borne by the development.
And so if it's the same amount of, administrative and bureaucratic holdback for a duplex as for an eightplex, well, you're probably going to get an eightplex so that the numbers can pencil, so that you can take that fixed cost away into the project. And so there's there's something to be said about having a gradual complexification of the bureaucratic process. That stuff is like on the low end is just like stamp, go do it. We don't care too much, and it just gets as it gets bigger, then it gets more complex, as opposed to and even nurturing the
individuals that would do that small increment.
So cities get consumed with the builders, like capital-B, capital-D developers. They get so consumed with them because they're doing four or five of these units, or they're it's the 80th permit they submitted for the city. Getting the folks that we would call incremental developers-the folks that are already in the community, helping somebody figure out for the first time how they can convert a garage to an apartment, or how they can do an addition on their house, how they can actually make their own investment on their own property-that's a lot of work to do, but it's the most rewarding of work because now we're we're when we think about the change.
If I'm sitting in my backyard, I see a big building go up next door. I'm going to think complicated, tough. Had went through a big process previously before the zoning change. It probably went through 12 public hearings with public input, and now that's bypassed. I wouldn't even know where to start, and I think there's a counter argument to it. Of in addition to just trying to show better codes and better numbers and deal with parking, it's also working with residents to show them how they can also participate in this process. How can they build? How can they fill out permits? What are the opportunities for their lot,
and if you've ever played Tetris, what it feels like to be like really in the zone, and things are dropping where they need to be, and lines are clearing. And then all of a sudden, like somebody asks you a question, you look away, and next thing like three or four have fallen in the wrong place, and it feels like everything is messed up. That feels a lot of probably what a lot of people in Edmonton, especially those that are asking for more housing to be available within the city, in order to help the city meet its core needs and be able to provide a quality of life for residents that will be sustained for a long time.
That's how they're feeling right now. Is just all of a sudden my Tetris game or my the progress that were making has just been completely undone. And I'll say, this not just in Alberta. We've seen this in Ontario, where bike lanes are being pulled out this week. That provinces or the provinces said, we're exercising our powers, we're getting rid of that. We see places that have been removing paint from crosswalks because paint is allegedly a safety issue, and so they're removing street improvements that have improved public safety and yet are now being simply pulled out.
We see this especially in some U.S. states where an attack or attack is maybe too strong a language, but property taxes are either being capped or being done away with, and cities are left holding the bag, saying, "How are we going to be able to cope? And so, in all of these circumstances, I'll go to you. First, what do you do when that like bomb blast goes off? When you have to suddenly just like pick up and rebuild, do you do run to the ramparts and storm that Bastille, or do you find ways to just adapt and figure it out? Let's get practical. What would you do in if you were living in Edmonton right now,
well, this something all cities should always be. if we build antifragile cities or resilient cities, whether it's whether it's a natural disaster or a political disaster or what have you, cities need to be able to withstand these shocks and grow and thrive under them. In particular, when it comes to this, like this a, this a good example why I'm very wary of state or provincial preemption on any issues, because it cuts both ways, right? You can't just be, oh yeah, I'm for state preemption when they're putting in policy things that I and then when it's not, then I rail against it, but I think there is a lesson to be learned there too, right?
Because we've seen in states where the state has come in and forced cities to allow for intensification that cities that don't want it get pretty darn creative at putting in all kinds of different rules to undermine it through setbacks, through what whatever what have you, and so I think it just comes down to the same thing on the other side. If you're a city that had intensive incremental intensification allowed as of right in your zoning, and then your province or your state comes and overturns that, well, it's time to roll up your sleeves and get creative and start working on all the little things that you can do to keep moving forward, right?
So it is exactly of the Strong Towns approach of what is the next smallest thing we can do from here, right? We may have moved the starting line back a little bit, but what is the next thing you can do? And so I think that's that's the approach to take.
Yeah, and one would be expedite lot splits and allow things like flag lots, so that way you can actually provide fee-simple or straight up ownership of parcels of land. Because one of the challenges in my city is that we technically are allowing up to four units on a property, but that property cannot be further subdivided into four distinct lots, which means that if I go for a mortgage, I need to tell them not only am I taking out a mortgage for my parcel, but I actually I am responsible to build the other three, and then I can rent them or try to sell them in a strata situation, and it just doesn't work.
And so, in this situation, then you're technically, if you allow that subdivision, then you actually have a single lot and a single property or a single home being built on a single lot, there just happens to be a cluster of them right in that area. There's a lot of ways to get creative that I think this bomb blast may actually result in. But Edward, what about what are some of the things that you've noticed? Because I do think that Mitch's point is well spoken about this being actually a thing that cities should be ready to do pivot in all sorts of different circumstances.
This one just feels very demoralizing because it feels, an erroneous starting position, resulting in some pretty poor judgment on policy. But this just, politicians are going to do what they're going to do. So what do you think? Yeah,
this disrupts the whole system. If I'm an investor in the community, every I'm not walking to City Hall with a set of building permit plans that I just did yesterday. By the time I'm getting ready to do a permit, I've got a year or two in the books moving forward on this. So the folks of 2024 that are coming forward that we're developing incubating their ideas, are just showing up today with that. So they're going to see a huge hiccup in the piece from a city standpoint.
Let me talk through if I'm in the planning department right now in Edmonton or any of the areas in Alberta that could be under this threat, because I know Calgary is like in the crosshairs next. I would start to look at where are your strategic retreats. Go to your maps. Use all of your tools beyond just where people are angry or excited. Go in and find in the areas. Okay, parking is an issue they just came up with. Where in the city are we actually overparked? Where do we have extra parking? Where do we have on street where on street parking is not an issue today, and we have capacity? Map that. Where are the areas in Medicine Hat?
Their biggest struggle is they had areas of the city that had undersized utility service, so they couldn't actually in the heart of the city add in anything new because they had caps of utilities. So in the city, where are the areas you actually have capacity for utilities and roadways and power and all those pieces and map that. You're going to start to overlay all of those pieces to know which neighborhoods are where you will never see this type of development occur, and be willing to sacrifice those and let them roll off the map until we can build trust again. Find the areas that are probably on the edge. That when we look at cities.
We talk about the proven complex development patterns, the places that the street grid exists. There's mixed-use buildings. They follow the traditional pattern, and then merely complicated. Those are the suburban areas, the built-to-finish state. Those are two really difficult areas to work in. But what are the areas that have the characteristic of the proven complex that are not fully built out, that have the empty lots, that have the dilapidated properties, and have utility capacity? Those are the hills I would die on, and let all the rest until we can move at the speed of trust.
All the rest needs to sit out there, and I think that is a valid retreat from a staff standpoint, and how I can be advising my elected officials to show them how we could strategically do this. If I'm elected official, I'm going to go do what they're doing and holler and yell and get in front of every microphone to explain why this a problem and why I was voted in office for these things, but for staff, stay out of the fray and look for the areas of strategic retreat and look at the areas that really do matter because those are the ripe areas that we could start to re-engage with this traditional development pattern.
Yeah, and I would also say there should definitely be an accounting of the people. 17,500 permits were issued in Edmonton in 2025, and the major large more than the dominant category that was issued was for townhomes and up, and that was the first time that had ever occurred compared to single-detached houses. And in that context, I would say that this there's a cohort of people now that are living in the loophole. They are living in that brief period of time when an experiment was conducted, and I think any good scientist is able to then go and say, "All right, that is not our. That's almost our control population of what we actually made possible.
And then let's evaluate and let's assess: Are the neighborhood schools actually a little healthier in that community? Are we seeing some of the improvements that we promised? Are we actually seeing them? Especially if you do this, like it's a pretty drastic social experiment to just put a sudden stop to something, but that gives you an opportunity if you're a planner or you're interested in these things, go study the before, the after, and then the after that, and find out what that looks like. And that, to me, feels very on point in terms of what it is to be taking note of our places, asking, are they working? Finding ways in order to refine and tweak what we're working with.
So, let's go in. Sort of take a breath for me, especially because this feels personal as an Alberta Albertan by birth, but not by well, I could say even by choice for a time. So, but in this context, it feels
personal to all of us, yeah.
right. Like
fundamentally, we're trying to move things forward. We're trying to seek change. We're trying to address our housing crisis. Our and we know that we need to build our way out of this mess we're in the places we've already made the investment. So yeah, we all take it personally, and it is. I, I don't know. I'm going to watch this because this just so fascinating. in the states, it'd be a run to the Supreme Court. There'd be all these lawsuits. There'd there'd be.
it might still be that here. We don't know, but I don't think so. And I think
all that, I find all of this I know my wife loves to listen to all those crime dramas and how all that works for me my like little simple pleasure is watching how this political stuff works in our built environment I find it just fascinating because it's not the first time this has happened this just the most emotional one right now.
Yeah. Well, and like progress isn't a straight line, right? It is uh is messy. is a messy way forward.
And maybe on the state preemption thing, and then we'll go to the down zone. Is you mentioned crime dramas, and immediately comes to mind the over over their head local police, and then the FBI comes in, and they just coldly, calmly, like take control of the scene and do that. That feels like a situation where a state says, "All right, here's a parking requirements, ban. We're no longer allowing this. What BC did to allow up to four units per lot is almost like a more competent level of government just coming in and taking care of. But you also have lots of crime stories where the FBI rolled in or some higher level, and all of a sudden things went sideways.
And that, from the perspective of trying to get good, solid policy in our communities, for me is one of the grave concerns here, and certainly something to be watching. So I think let's think it's I
think it's interesting you called you called a higher order of government, a more competent order of government, because the reality is like we understand when we look at municipal government that like oh yeah these councilors as mayor these are our neighbors these are these are the people we live beside and so we're like yeah of course they're they're just normal people, but even at the provincial or state level or at the federal level like these are still our neighbors. They're still people who are "Hey, I'm. But instead of running for municipal politics, they ran for state or provincial. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have a more competent order of government.
We're still just everybody's doing their best at their level best at the job they are they have, right? So, so yeah, I would I would refrain from calling different from ranking competency based on an order of government,
yeah, we could. I always say that we are better governed than we deserve, but not as well governed as we wish. And so that's that's good. That's good. Yeah. With that, what is let's move into the down zone, and so let's pick up. Just what is it that you're taking in that is giving you either delight or cause for just further thought? Mitch, you're up first, and then Edward, over to you.
Well, it's crazy that I just finished. I was rereading The Black Swan, and I just finished it yesterday, and so I. It's funny that this story came out yesterday at the same time. I'm yeah, this seemed to love. Yeah, this might not be a black swan because maybe it was predictable. Maybe it was more of a gray swan. But yeah, this. But yeah,
yeah. Well, that feels like a canonical book. So well done. That's awesome. What about for you, Edward?
Well, gosh, my down zone is way simpler than that. I in our family at Christmas time we do a special Christmas cookie, a German cookie called a springerle. It's just been a tradition in the family. It's something that is an anise cookie. You roll it out. It has a wood block. You do the press on, and then you let it air dry, and you bake it. And as youth, they were like super hard, like almost like hard candy. And then we've softened them up. It's just been a tradition. I love making them every year, and it's like the only cookie I make, and it's a big deal. I actually found a book recently.
It's called the a little book of springerle, and it is by L. Hart that I've been reading through, and it's fascinating how we have all these traditions, and where do they come from? And because they're just around us, like we just assume that's just the way it's always been. So it's been fun to go back through that.
My family recipe is a take on I think what was out of a Betty Crocker cookbook, which follows all the recipes in here. it's been slightly adjusted throughout the years, but it is fun to go back and see these traditions and realize that in addition to just my German roots, there are other places in Europe where this type of cookie emerges using different names. So yeah, those commonplace things that are always around us. It just for me, it's that fun little history thing. And then if you are always feeling a little sad, just go around and just start saying "springerle" in every language and accent you can and you're gonna get a giggle out of it right now
that's awesome I love it especially as a Dutch person who I disdain much of Dutch baking it just never seems to come across I'm always like why did the Swiss get chocolate, and we got like dry, crusty almond bread. But that is that I know that shots fired, so I got to be careful. But I will share. I was on a flight to San Diego for the Strong Towns. The Strong Towns San Diego group hosted all of the local conversation leaders in the region for a training session. It was awesome. Had a great time, and on the flight, I got to finish the manuscript of Chuck's book, "Grow Strong: Jobs, Growth, and Economic Development in a Strong Town.
And there were probably my seatmates were wondering, "Who is this guy? Because I was getting really into it. It is excellent. It is. It tells a fascinating story, but also then weaves in all of these layers of what we need to reckon with in terms of jobs and growth, and then the strength of our local economies, and so I know that book is still to come. We haven't yet; I don't think we yet have a full release date, but it is going to be early next year. Super excited for that! And if you are waiting for Chuck's book to come out, definitely go pick up a copy of Mitch's book.
You'll pay for this, so you will have to pay for it. Unfortunately, but you will also come to understand more about your community when you do that. With that, thank you to Mitch. Thanks to Edward. We, as I said at the in the intro, we pivoted right away to this piece just because it was this really touches on so many of the core elements of what we're, in a sense, what we're up against, what we're challenged by, some of the factors that we need to take into consideration when we try to make progress, adapt to changes as those apples keep falling on Newton's foot.
We are constantly dealing with the fact that gravity is a force upon us, but also energy and the way in which it moves through our places is going to always be changing us. And so, when we react to those things, I think I always say we've got to find ways to do just make things just a little less worse, and hopefully, along the way, make things better in our communities. So, thank you, Mitch, for coming on episode today.
That was great as usual,
and Edward, props to you with I think what 15 minutes of prep time. So fantastic!
I am always thinking about this stuff. No, it is. I saw the article this morning, so I've been stewing on it all day. Yeah,
he's always prepared. He's that's right. Yeah, yeah.
Excellent. Well, and thank you for listening to Upzone today, I hope that this also resonates in your community. Perhaps setting you up to be able to have important conversations with folks where you live to speak up for what we want to see in our communities. To be able to articulate a really positive vision of what good change looks like for the better. And so, with that, take care and take care of your places. This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership.