You probably already know that Edmonton is busy drawing up plans for the re-development of the old Municipal Airport site. The speed at which the city is moving is far faster than normal, and I suspect they are anxious to get something built before Edmonton voters change their minds and want the old airport reopened.
I attended a recent presentation by the City of Edmonton on their plans for the site, a plan that has a population of 30,000 living on the airport lands once all phases are complete, sometime around 2050. Considering the cost of this project, I was surprised the city didn’t spend a few dollars for some good presentation material. For example:
The presentation started with the laptop, screen and projector unable to communicate with each other, and despite the fevered work of countless city technicians, nothing worked. Fortunately, one of the young waiters was able to come forward and got everything working as intended. In retrospect, it might have been better if the young waiter had not worked his magic. We were then shown a series of site maps, most of which were not labelled, and all of which were too small to view. While someone had added colour to the pages, each page had up to 30 colours on display. I never knew there were so many different shades of green!
While the presentation was weak, my main concern was with the apparent attitude adopted by the city. It didn’t take long to realize that the city has acted like the proverbially “kid in a candy store,” and told the planners to add in every conceivable option.
If built as currently planned, this site will have residential units, shopping districts, commercial space, health care facilities, schools and colleges, links to the city’s bicycle pathways, an artificial lake, churches, facilities for sports and recreation, its own “green” energy system, a carbon neutral footprint, police stations, fire halls, cultural centres, museums, a two-stop LRT system, a giant hill at the north end of the city, agricultural fields, world-class water recycling, connected roadways to all surrounding communities, and – dare I say it – a partridge in a pear tree.
After reviewing what I heard and saw, I came to a few general conclusions:
It’s possible to reach a point where you’ve added in so many items that they start to interfere with each other. For example, I mentioned the artificial lake. I can understand the desire for residents to look out at a so-called natural scene. However, the city’s desire for roadways to connect all surrounding communities results in bridges being built over the lakes! So much for good old Mother Nature.
The only thing the city has not included in its plan serves as a testament to how much bureaucrats just love social engineering, for parking for the thousands of automobiles doesn’t appear in the plans. The city mumbled something about shared parking and off-site parking, while also pointing out that public transit will be available. The presenter then began to wonder whether people would even need to own cars. Here we go … again.
Common sense is no barrier when city planners get involved. The city has obviously asked for the moon, and the planners have gleefully said yes to every request. However, no one has pointed out the obvious problem: when you include every conceivable option in your plan, the cost becomes so outrageously high than no one can afford to purchase the housing units in this new utopia.
Despite paying lip service to community consultation, this is a plan formulated in a vacuum.
City officials got highly upset when Brian suggested that the only other thing this new city was going to need was an … airport.
