The City’s own stats tell the story: Two thirds of the new developments in Edmonton are on our south side.
Developers are bullish about the south side, and don’t want the City to follow through on plans to limit more new developments in this part of the city until the west, north and east can catch up.
Developers will tell you over and over: They don’t shape what homebuyers want, they respond to what homebuyers want. And so many of us are voting with our dollars and buying in the south. We’re dedicating our futures to living in the south.
“There’s a lot of reasons why the south is winning the popularity contest over the last number of years,” says Sue Keating, Melcor’s vice president, community development Edmonton. “I don’t think there’s any one real reason. But, I think in the south, a lot has to do with simple desires, like wanting to be near family or the community you grew up in. There are social and worship connections.”
Melcor is developing in Glenridding, Cavanagh Ridge and Jagare Ridge. Keating says they’re examples of building in areas where there are great natural features. And that’s where the south may be ahead — with neighbourhoods close to places like MacTaggart Sanctuary.
“These are areas that have lots of gorgeous natural features like ravines and creeks. In our experience, that has furthered our ability to develop specialized lots that back onto golf courses, ravines, creeks, tree stands.”
Keating says that being close to the airport is a draw, and it makes the drive to employment hubs in Nisku and Leduc a lot easier to manage. While the health of downtown is vital to Edmonton, it’s not the same sort of employment hub as you’d find in the cores of cities like Vancouver or Toronto. Many of us don’t work downtown, so our commutes aren’t based on how close we live to the centre of Edmonton. The south has major retail drivers and industries.
Mike Kohl is senior vice president of Alberta Communities for Brookfield Residential, which has southern developments in Chappelle Gardens, Paisley and The Orchards, and is in Edgemont and Parkland in the southwest.
“I think the south side, from the east all the way to the west, just has a lot of land supply relative to the north or the northeast,” he says. “And it opens up opportunities for existing Edmontonians, but also new Canadians, to start new communities. I think that’s a part of it. There are these mini communities that start to develop critical mass.”
So, with a lot of land available, that means house prices in Edmonton remain lower than any other major city in Canada. And this means it attracts a lot of people who are new to the city, many of them new to the country. As these immigrant communities build, they attract more people from similar backgrounds. If you have come to Canada from India, you want to establish yourself in a place where you can hear your mother tongue, have stories that are relatable to your neighbours, and find familiar foods in the local restaurants and shops.
“People want to go where they have familiarity, people want to be near their people,” says Keating.
The City of Edmonton has an anti-racism mission statement. It reads that it “brings our community together to improve equity, end poverty, eliminate racism and make clear progress toward Truth and Reconciliation. We acknowledge that this is complex and multifaceted work and are developing a number of different approaches to address that complexity head on. Together, we will create a City — a home — where every individual, in all their unique diversity, belongs.”
What does this have to do with development in the south? A lot. And it’s an elephant in the room that needs to be discussed.
There is no doubt a lot of anti-suburban, anti-sprawl sentiment in our media, in podcasts, in City Hall itself. But, a lot of the strong urbanist voices are… white and male (like the writer of this article). Yet, the truth is, a lot of racialized people choose to live in new homes in the burbs.
“I think it is part of the Canadian-slash-American dream,” says Kohl. “You want to have a tremendous quality of life here. It’s about the ability to be able to afford to buy a home here, enter home ownership, have a small yard and have that community around you.”
“We take pride in giving people the ability to attain home ownership, says Keating. “We hear, consistently, that there is a draw to owning your own home and having a grassy yard. It’s definitely a draw for the suburbs.”
Ellerslie Road is filled with South Asian eateries and shops. The Meadows is a diverse neighbourhood. Owning a home is the fulfillment of many immigrants’ dreams — and they include a new build, with a yard and a park that’s close by. There’s a real cachet that comes with owning a new home.
“Edmonton is a great referral city,” says Kohl. “No one thinks of Edmonton as the first place they want to move to when they first come to Canada. But once you’re here, you love living here and you get communities that start to develop around each other. A critical mass is created, and so when you see new immigrants come in, they tend to go where their communities are. And there’s a significant amount of that in the southeast and the southwest.”
Later this year, City Council is expected to further discuss a plan that would limit expansion to the south. Developers have been critical of this plan, arguing that limiting development in the area in which people most want to buy will drive up prices and simply send people towards Leduc, Beaumont and Devon.
Those who support the strategy — and, so far, council has voted to go forward with it — argue the cash-strapped city can’t afford to keep building the infrastructure and transit to keep up with sprawl heading mainly in one direction.
“I have enough history in Calgary to know that, through growth management — the same terminology used in Edmonton — the long-term supply of housing was managed,” says Kohl. “Frankly, it was limited. As soon as the market took off in Calgary, there was only so much available housing supply that could be there, and it drove pricing up materially over the last 18 months. Calgary has become so much more unaffordable relative to Edmonton.
“Maintaining housing affordability is critical, because it can catch up to you very quickly.”
But, there is one very large fly that’s in the ointment — and it could have a bigger effect on southern expansion that any edict from the City. Developers and new residents had expected a promised south-side hospital to be built relatively soon. Plans and funding were in place. But, in its most recent budget, Premier Danielle Smith’s UCP government announced that the plans were on hold.
“I would say it definitely affects the development side,” says Kohl. “It affects the residents that live in the area, on the expectation that a hospital would be in their area. I really hope, if there’s not a south-Edmonton health campus, that there’s another form of health centre there. That can still be a great catalyst in that area. From the city-building perspective, we’ve all invested a lot of planning and infrastructure into the idea of a major hospital going there. It certainly will affect how we plan out the long-term area, there.”
This article appears in the May 2024 issue of Edify
