Mar. 10, 2011 - Issue #803 : A city by the people

Revitalizing debate

Citizens work to be heard as the city plans for the future

Revitalization is becoming a ubiquitous word in city planning, used to describe everything from community initiatives to multi-million-dollar housing and business projects. With city council's increased interest in finding ways to attach a revitalization tag, citizens are finding ways to ensure they're not forgotten in the planning process.

When Christy Morin placed an ad looking for fellow artists to talk about the issues along 118 Avenue, she couldn't know the eventual project would influence city council's neighbourhood planning decisions. Council took a quick liking to the project which focused on rehabilitating a neighbourhood that it and its planning departments were having trouble fixing.

"There was a real sense of urgency in the state of the community when they began revitalization efforts back five years ago," says Morin. "The different departments weren't coming together to talk about drug houses and vacant businesses and a sense of isolation in the community. And so the political climate was extremely positive for an arts group to come together and look at a different model in creating community."

Morin believes council is now far more interested in developing community-level initiatives. "This was a creative approach to growing a community by seeing what inventory is already in place and then connecting the disparate departments to create change," says Morin. "Alberta Avenue has become a model."

Having started five years ago, Morin believes the community is just beginning to see the developments. "This really was a pilot project to see if there were ways of creating economic revitalization and community safety, so I'd like to see steady, continued support as we create this momentum."

The Great Neighbourhoods program, begun in 2009, seeks to develop connections between well-maintained infrastructure, safety and interesting amenities, something the Arts on the Avenue project pioneered. The program is set up to support community initiatives through matching city grants and strategic plans designed in collaboration between city planners and the community. It mirrors the organic process of the Arts on the Avenue project.

"When revitalization began, no one had a sense of the weightiness that arts had in the community, and when we began Arts on the Ave the city saw it working and said, 'Wow, let's embrace this and see how it fits in,'" says Morin. "Each neighbourhood and community has a different personality."
Chris Buyze, president of the Downtown Edmonton Community League, is encouraged by a boost to community league funding late last year. As of January 1, community leagues were able to receive 40 percent more in operating grants and a separate fund was set up for capital projects. To Buyze and Ian O'Donnell, chair of the development committee of the DECL, it's evidence the city is more interested in genuine community development. "The trend in urban planning in general is community consultation, especially if it's a development issue," says O'Donnell.

O'Donnell and Buyze, have been involved in numerous design projects happening in the downtown area—most recently the negotiation and approval of the downtown strategic plan. With a diverse, 13-member board, the DECL focuses on the variety of needs of downtown residents. "We tried to think of the way citizens directly interact with their street," says O'Donnell. "I think we made change positively to what they had originally proposed." It took hours of volunteer work by Buyze and O'Donnell: attending council meetings, making meetings with developers and consultants, emails and communications with their own board. It's time not all residents have.

"During that process [the downtown plan] was handed over to different people and the focus changed and there were certain times we had to say, 'We haven't heard from you in six months, what's going on?'" says Buyze. "Those wake up calls are necessary sometimes and they're effective."
Citizens can get lost in the process and sometimes council and city administration are not as helpful as they should be.

"Sometimes the city can screw up," says Buyze. "There are times when they haven't notified us in time. And community leaders are volunteers so the city needs to give an adequate amount of time to digest and deal with the issue."

Lorne Humphreys, president of Speak Up Edmonton believes the city needs to do a better job keeping citizens involved in the process. "There's a lack of communication," says Humphreys. "Even among councillors: they don't all understand the same facts at the same time."

It's part of the reason Humphreys got involved in Speak Up Edmonton: to ask questions about the funding of the proposed downtown arena project. With public consultation meetings feeling like a sell job, Humphreys hopes the city takes citizen concerns seriously. "You can't structure [a consultation] like an Amway meeting," he says. "Democracy is messy and you have to be prepared to hear something you don't want to."

"You always have to be aware of biases," says Buyze. "Every councillor has their own sensibility for what they want to see in the city."
Buyze and O'Donnell are adamant that, despite the appearance that council's decision is foregone, citizens can still have an impact. "If you feel you're being left out of the process, it may be that councillors aren't aware citizens aren't being consulted properly," says Buyze. "You need to step up and say, 'Hey we need to be involved in this process because the result affects us.'"

Speak Up Edmonton's concern goes beyond missing a few meetings. Director Trudie Kaufmann is worried that not all information is getting to the public with regard to the proposed arena.
"There's still a location study that has never been released to the public," says Kaufmann. "It's curious to me that it's okay for Daryl Katz to know this information and not for the public."
For Kaufmann and Humphreys, the problem is the disconnect between public funds and decision making. "When you go back to the start of this, they never asked whether Edmontonians even wanted this arena." says Kaufmann.

"I think major financial issues should go to some form of plebiscite." says Humphreys. "Especially when you're creating a business levy or bond, why wouldn't you take it to the population? After all, that's who's paying for it. I don't think we elect councillors to make major financial decisions we didn't know about at the time of election. I didn't think that was the deal, but maybe I'm wrong." V

More stories in front »

vueweekly.com comments: powered by Disqus