More than a dozen recommendations from the city's Downtown Area Redevelopment Plan (DARP) should be considered a low priority, or outright postponed, moving forward, administration told council on Wednesday.
The DARP, which was approved in 2010, aimed to “spark vibrancy and greater private-sector investment” downtown, but after nearly 14 years, just 10 of the plan's 28 total recommendations have been completed, while seven more are currently underway.
According to a report to council written by city planner Craig Walker, administration recently undertook a re-examination of the DARP's recommendations, and came to the conclusion that 16 of the initiatives that are either underway or that haven't been started should be set aside, at least for now.
“It is worth reiterating that DARP provides general direction, but it is not meant to be overly-prescriptive,” Walker wrote. “In other words, it is not necessarily imperative that every specific project and policy be implemented verbatim as originally contemplated by DARP back in 2010.”
Among the DARP initiatives the city has completed since 2010, Walker's report states, include a downtown parking strategy, a traffic impact assessment, an expansion of the Art Gallery of St. Albert, a servicing and stormwater management study, and more.
The projects currently underway, which the city plans to continue contingent on council decisions, include updating the city's Land Use Bylaw, development of Millennium Park, a public art strategy, and forming partnerships to support the development of undeveloped land downtown such as 22 St. Thomas Street.
The list of DARP initiatives that administration has identified as being no longer viable or not a priority moving forward include miscellaneous improvements to St. Anne Street, Perron Street, Tache Street and St. Thomas Street; building a $20 million parking structure; establishing a redevelopment levy; and developing a new DARP.
These initiatives that were deemed no longer viable, Walker explained, comes from administration giving each project a score based on how each initiative aligns with council's strategic plan, proactively reduces risk, what its financial impact is estimated to be, or impact to service levels.
During council's committee of the whole meeting on Jan. 17, Mayor Cathy Heron suggested council consider moving ahead with some of the road improvement projects.
“It fully aligns with our strategic plan, all of these things,” Heron said. “Maybe it's worth further conversation on what the cost of some of these individual things are, and if they're within reason we might want to [complete them].”
The city's Chief Administrative Officer, Bill Fletcher, responded by saying the projects “aren't as small” as council might expect, and the projects would “divert time and effort from somewhere else.”
“That means there might be implications to other things that council has identified as priorities,” Fletcher said. “I realize that might sound obstructionist, and that's not the case because all of these are important and we could figure it all out, but I think there's kind of an impression that ‘it's just planting some trees and we'd be good.’”
A city document attached to the Jan. 17 meeting agenda shows that all of the road improvement projects, combined, could cost about $21.5 million, however most of the estimates were completed in 2011, or 2017.
Coun. Mike Killick asked administration during the committee meeting on Wednesday exactly how council could move forward with the DARP, saying that although he doesn't want to see all of the plan implemented, council is still committed to improving the downtown area.
In response, Fletcher suggested that council could wait until the newly formed downtown Business Improvement Area (BIA) has established its first board and budget, and see if the BIA would make a recommendation to council about which remaining projects should be considered a priority.
Council formally established the downtown BIA back in September, and BIAs are corporations established through municipal bylaw, and provincially regulated in Alberta under the Municipal Government Act (MGA). There are roughly 35 BIAs in operation throughout the province, with most being located in Edmonton and Calgary.
Unlike a chamber of commerce, which also works to advocate for and improve business interests, BIAs are funded through a tax levy assessed to all businesses within the BIA's geographic area. Those funds can be used for things like marketing, visitor attraction, event coordinating, strategic plans, beautification, crime prevention, and more.
“I think we should understand what they want to do before we go in and start digging stuff up,” Fletcher said.
On Wednesday Coun. Wes Brodhead asked staff for an update on one of the DARP initiatives listed as being underway: the city offering downtown development incentives.
Shawn McCauley, the city's manager of business retention and expansion, said a report to council about a potential incentive program will be coming at some point.
“We're actually looking at three streams at the moment,” McCauley said. “An investment attraction stream, we're looking at community wide incentives as a retention [strategy] and then also specific to downtown.”
The committee of the whole voted unanimously to accept Walker's report for adminstration.
