It’s up to the region, now.
St. Albert city councillors voted 6-1 Nov. 5 to advance the draft Northeast Area Structure Plan (ASP) through first reading, straight to the Edmonton Metropolitan Regional Board (EMRB).
The EMRB will have to give its blessing to the ASP because it is not in line with Flourish, St. Albert’s overarching Municipal Development Plan (MDP). In fact, it “undermines” it.
That document, in turn, zippers into the Edmonton Metropolitan Region Growth Plan, which is mandated by the province. Member municipalities’ statutory plans must align.
For this and other reasons, city staff recommended council vote against the ASP.
Dominick Mis, whose family owns a quarter-section of the land that was annexed by the city (Mayor Cathy Heron described them as a “huge landowner out there”), said they reacted with “shock” upon learning administrators had taken this position.
Mis said that effectively would “sterilize” their lands of any value that development could unlock for decades, almost definitely beyond the lifespan of anyone in council chambers. Its value would plummet.
“If that were to happen, we would have been better off not having had our lands included in the northeast ASP in the first place, which again was a requirement the city imposed," Mis said.
City councillors appeared at least as surprised.
“I don’t think in 14 years of being an elected official I’ve ever seen an area structure plan come to me with a recommendation to defeat,” Heron said. “This is not easy. It’s actually quite difficult.”
She said councillors never imagined halting progress in the northeast.
Coun. Wes Brodhead asked why the city seemed to want to throttle growth and keep it close to the historical rate of 1.3 per cent, or about 1,000 people a year.
“The province is growing faster than it ever has, but we only have so much that can come here,” he said. “And yet other communities, in Sherwood Park, they’re actually building a whole new city out there in Bremner (east of Highway 21). Doesn’t seem to bother them.”
He said he saw staff presenting them with a zero-sum game: If you add here, you subtract from over there.
“Why can’t it be additive? Why aren’t we growing at 2.6 (per cent)? Or 3.4?" Brodhead asked.
“We’ve got developers coming, they want to build there, and we’re going to say ‘no’ to them? I don’t understand that.”
City CAO Bill Fletcher said administration is not trying to constrain growth.
“We work off data, and the data states that over the last number of years … we’ve grown an average of 1.3 per cent,” Fletcher said, acknowledging that has increased recently. “You need to base your projections on data, or you’re just making stuff up.
“It’s trying to manage investment through priority growth.”
Timing is everything
For the planners, timing is everything.
Though 2024 been a record-breaking year for St. Albert’s population, “we can’t assume these high growth numbers can be sustained indefinitely,” planner Craig Walker said.
He said investing in the northeast would be a “significant departure” from the MDP direction of pushing growth to the west. Council approved the west ASP Sept. 3 and the servicing of the Lakeview Business District Oct. 15.
It would not take advantage of the investment made and being made in the west; in fact, it would require a $75 million sewer line extension and could trigger more than $230 million worth of other spending by the city to support development.
The latest functional study St. Albert has on 127 Street, for example, doesn’t foresee its extension until roughly 2053.
City planners and financial directors start to shift in their seats when politicians talk about servicing the west and northeast at the same time, worrying the budget and existing services could be stretched too thin.
Walker said earlier 78 per cent of the land in the northeast ASP is new annex, and has no sanitary sewer capacity. He said the MDP identifies areas within the city where most, if not all, of the 28,000 residents needed to meet St. Albert’s goal of growing to 100,000 can live without ever having to develop the annexed lands in the northeast.
That plan includes adding around 7,900 new residents in Riverside and Cherot. If you want to travel any farther west of that neighbourhood, you’re going to need a paddle or something to do in Sturgeon County.
“Expansion into the northeast is premature based upon our current growth needs as well as our financial realities,” Walker said. “It’s not ‘no-never,’, it’s ‘not just yet.’”
Well, not just yet is just not acceptable for St. Albert city councillors.
Trying to not be angry
With the 6-1 vote (Coun. Natalie Joly was against), the politicians have given their leader, Heron, a task: argue at the EMRB table that the new ASP should be approved, and that Flourish and the regional plan should accommodate it, not vice versa.
Joly actually halted Coun. Sheena Hughes’ line of questioning for the planners with a point of order that she was concerned staff were being badgered.
Hughes was trying to rationalize a recommendation that could freeze out that corner of the city from development for decades with all the effort of changing the channel.
"We spent years and millions annexing lands to now be told we’re not going to look at developing them for decades,” she said of St. Albert’s 2022 1,500-hectare land-grab in the northeast. “Why bother annexing them at all then?
“I have a huge challenge right now of trying, actually, to not be angry seeing this.”
Hughes was told that the MDP lines up with the EMRB, which is a 25-30-year growth plan. Annexation typically is done with a 40-50-year horizon, and “is never a guarantee.”
Hughes plans to put in a request for staff to draft amendments to Flourish in order to allow the NEASP to comply. It should come back to council in the first quarter of 2025.
Voting in the negative, Joly said she took city planners at their word when they outlined the perils of straying from the thoughtfully crafted MDP.
"I’m supportive of growth in this area but also very aware that planning best practices help create a thriving community,” she said. “That’s why we’re here."
"I’m confident the pool residents said they want seven years ago will be dead in the water if we (continue to) make one-off decisions that are outside our priorities.”
