Jun. 15, 2011 - Issue #817: Paying for water

Edmonton dreamin’

City Centre redevelopment reality may not match hopes

City council will choose a design team for the airport lands redevelopment this week, with a decision expected June 22. The vote will mark the end of a year-long international design competition for the contract to plan development on the closing Edmonton City Centre Airport. The city was looking for a team capable of creating a world-leading, environmentally sustainable community with easy access to public transit.

Before a final winner is announced, however, local architect Shafraaz Kaba has some doubts about the city's ability to deliver the sustainable development that city council says it wants.
"The city is really great at planning and creating these big visions," he says, "but they are really poor at implementing and committing to them when it comes down to allocating budgets and resources."
Kaba has been involved in the process. He was part of the bid from BNIM, an architectural firm from Kansas City, Missouri, which didn't make the last round.

The recent arena decision is a case in point, says Kaba. The process was not transparent as it ought to have been, and a price has already been set, before proper consultations on design.
"Right away, they are making it about price," he says. "That tells you that the city would rather cheap out when it comes to the design than go over budget."

Besides the funding, Kaba is concerned about making sure the development works in the context of Edmonton. All the firms that made it to the final round of the airport redevelopment presented plans that don't match the reality of Edmonton, he says.
"I'm afraid that what might end up happening is that we'll get something like Summerside," he says, "where you make a fake lake for storm water retention, and it doesn't become as special as the images we've seen."

Making sure that the project lives up to it's potential is a legitimate concern, says Phil Sande, executive director of City Centre Airport Redevelopment, but money might not be the deciding factor here. This is a unique situation and there are several factors in the city's favour.
"Having the city as the owner of the land at the base level allows us to have the affordability," he says, "as council gets to decide how much of the profit from the sale of the property gets applied back into the various sustainable opportunities."

Building a sustainable community doesn't necessarily mean it costs more. For example, laying out the buildings to maximize the amount of sun and solar energy collected doesn't cost extra money: it simply requires better forethought, Sande says.
The other factor to consider is that deciding on a team merely starts the re-development process: the public will be consulted for a 15-month period. After that, the design team will come up with the plans for the area, including the master plan, neighbourhood plans and zoning.
"What we do with this team is identify the skeleton, the bones of what this development will be," says Sande.

The final look of the development will be fleshed out as individuals and corporations buy up the land and build on it.
So the actual look and feel of the neighbourhood—which will take 30 to 50 years to develop—could be quite different from the conceptual plan presented by the winning design team.
During this process, it's important to raise people's expectations, says Sande, because that creates buy-in from the community.
"If you don't set your sights high at the very beginning, then you have no chance of ever achieving it."
 

 

 

 

Community Mandate:

The master planning principles were approved by City Council in 2009. They were meant to guide design submissions and part of City Council's selection of the final design is based on the design firm's interpretation of the following principles and ideas.

• The area will be home to 30 000 Edmontonians

• It must retain the history of Edmonton's aviation legacy.

• The redevelopment has been mandated to be the most comprehensively sustainable development in the world using 100 percent renewable energy.

• The City Centre Redevelopment team is using the UN definition of sustainable: "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Three dimensions of societal development must cooperate for sustainable development: The social, economic, and ecological dimensions.”
• The redevelopment must have the capability to empower people to make different lifestyle choices.

• As part of the planning principles, the redevelopment committee included the example of the One Planet communities. These are urban eco-villages that include real estate with zero emissions and zero waste, as well as sustainable transport with an 82 percent reduction in carbon dioxied emissions.

• Project proposals should reach LEED Gold standards which call for energy efficient electronics, recycled carpet, the use of mountain-pine beetle wood  and furniture from 100 percent recycled material.

• Space for public parks and the presence of restorative ecological initiatives must be present.

• A green energy system including a zero carbon district energy system which connects with NAIT.
 

 

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