The City of St. Albert wrapped up its first municipal census in six years on June 27, and Mayor Cathy Heron and multiple members of council say they think the results will show the city's population reaching at least 71,000, more residents renting their homes than before, and more residents now working from home.
With the data collection period for this year's census now complete, staff will spend the next couple of months compiling and analyzing the data before releasing it to the public in the fall. In the meantime, the Gazette spoke with a number of St. Albert's elected officials to see what their predictions were when it comes to what the data will show.
Population growth
The federal census conducted in 2021 by Statistics Canada pegged St. Albert's population at 68,232, which was an increase of 2,150 compared to the 2018 census conducted by the city.
Mayor Cathy Heron said she thinks St. Albert's population could come in at around 73,000 in this year's census.
“Slow and steady growth is always good, but I also want to be able to position ourselves as a fast-growing community,” she said, referencing how St. Albert generally has an average annual population growth rate of between one per cent to 1.8 per cent, whereas Airdrie, Alberta, for example has seen average annual population growth rates above 3.8 per cent for the last few years.
Heron said she'd like to see higher annual growth rates due to the fact that she represents St. Albert in the Alberta Mid-Sized Cities Mayor's Caucus, which is a group of mayors that work together to advocate to the provincial government on issues effecting municipalities with populations over 15,000, not including Calgary or Edmonton.
“As a member of the Mid-Sized Cities Caucus in Alberta, we are presenting ourselves to the province as the type of municipality that's urban, with sophisticated staff and the capacity to do some of the big city type projects whether it be revitalization levies or the such, but at the same time nimble and get things done very quickly so if you want to pilot something in our community we're here to help,” Heron explained.
“Airdrie, Cochrane, Beaumont, Leduc, Spruce Grove — they're growing super fast and I don't think we'll ever be as fast as them but... that kind of slow and steady yet accelerated growth would position St. Albert to get a little bit more support federally or provincially for sure.”
RELATED: St. Albert, other mid-size cities strive for province's attention
Councillors Shelley Biermanski, Ken MacKay, and Mike Killick all had more conservative population estimates, as each think the 2024 census will show St. Albert's population to be between 71,200 and 72,000.
“I would like it to be higher,” said MacKay. “I would like it to be 73,000-74,000 because it obviously leads to more grant dollars.”
Killick, who specifically guessed St. Albert's population to be 71,285, said he was hoping to see a “manageable” level of growth.
“A faster pace of growth means more challenges for providing infrastructure and schools, hospitals, roads, sewers, grass cutting — all of those things — and I just want to see a nice steady growth in the numbers and I believe we will see that,” he said.
Aging community?
A trend that continued to be shown in the city's 2018 census was that St. Albert's population was getting older, with the average age at the time being 40.9 years, whereas in 2016 the average age was 40.1.
In fact, St. Albert's average age has been steadily climbing for more than a decade, as it sat at about 38 back in 2009.
No member of council the Gazette spoke to said they thought for sure the 2024 census results would break this trend, but both Heron and Killick said they thought it was possible.
“I'm hopeful that it will show that just with the number of housing units that are being built in Jensen Lakes [or] Riverside,” said Killick, referencing two of the community's newest neighbourhoods that have both been substantially built out since 2018.
“Even on my street, I'm starting to see younger families and younger kids move in, and certainly when I listen to the school boards, they are showing that there's a lot more young kids moving into St. Albert.”
On the other hand, Biermanski said she's curious to know just how many of those moving into neighbourhoods like Jensen Lakes or Riverside are actually having children, which would play a role in determining St. Albert's average age.
“There's a lot of people in St. Albert that have been in their neighbourhood for a lot of years, and the transition will be younger families will move into those neighbourhoods in the future but then the other question that I always have is is it really families?,” she said. “St. Albert was always a family-oriented city, but now people are having kids in their 30s or not having kids at all.”
“It'll be interesting data for us to follow up on too because even if seniors are selling homes or people are moving on to something else, it's just a matter of who moves in.”
Less homeowners and more renters?
In 2018 about 83.5 per cent of residents reported owning their home, while the remaining 16.5 per cent rented. At the time, St. Albert had 21,466 single-detached homes and duplexes or townhouses combined, compared to just 3,848 apartments.
“Kingswood, Oakmont, Deer Ridge, and Riverside had the highest percentage of home ownership, with Ville Giroux, Inglewood, and Erin Ridge North having the highest percentage of renters,” reads the city's 2018 census analysis. “This is in line with the multi-family [versus] single-family housing mix in these neighbourhoods.”
Heron said she thinks the 2024 census will show that the percentage of homeowners in St. Albert has declined, mainly as a result of the city's “targeted” effort to spur rental housing development.
READ MORE: St. Albert projects 2,300 new rentals, but vacancy rate still low
“I think the percentage of homeowners will probably go down a little bit, which is a good thing, because we've been very targeted about attracting rental units,” she said.
“That's positive. We definitely should have options for people to have a roof over their head.”
Killick said he doesn't think there will be too big of a change when it comes to home ownership rates because just as more rental units have come on the market, so has more townhouses and duplexes.
“All the growth in Cherot, Riverside, Jensen Lakes, Erin Ridge North — all of those areas that are growing — are a lot of single-family-type homes,” Killick said. “They may be duplexes or four-plexes, but they're still under the home-ownership banner.”
“The other thing is I do see a lot of people building those homes that have rental suites in the basement or maybe a garden suite over the garage, but lots of people are developing their basement for rental.”
More residents working from home
Another area of change that some members of council mentioned they were expecting to see was where residents work.
In 2018 almost 15,000 residents reported their place of full-time employment was in Edmonton, or 56.4 per cent of all residents who work full-time. Just over 6,000 residents said they worked full-time in St. Albert, while 1,165 residents worked full-time from home.
Biermanski said she thinks more St. Albertans are working full-time from home in 2024 compared to 2018, and those workers were likely working in Edmonton before.
“I would think that it would be less people going into Edmonton because specifically the type of jobs that work from home are the type of jobs that people would be going into Edmonton for [namely] office jobs or government jobs,” she said.
MacKay said he also thought more people are working from home now, but he wasn't sure if that information would be collected accurately in the census as he expects some residents who work full-time from home now to still report working in Edmonton if that's where their place of employment is based.
“I'm wondering how they choose to identify, because we don't get that specific,” MacKay said. “It could be somebody says, ‘I'm working from home so even though my head office or my actual office is in Edmonton’, or somebody says, ‘I work for the provincial government but I only go in once a week or twice a week’, so it'll be interesting to see how people interpret that.”
MacKay also said he wasn't expecting to see a higher percentage of residents report working full-time in St. Albert as the city hasn't seen to much major commercial development in the past six years, but it's possible that more residents are working full-time in the surrounding municipalities away from Edmonton, given the growth in places like the Industrial Heartland.
READ MORE: 'New industrial revolution' in Alberta's Heartland region: Kenney
St. Albert's deputy city clerk, Cheryle Wong, said in an email on June 25 that to date, the city had a high response rate for this year's census.
“As we wrap up the 2024 census, we thank all residents for participating in this important process as the data is an essential part of planning for our city’s growth and future,” Wong said.
