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Municipal Politics
- Thread starter Airboy
- Start date
TAS
Senior Member
Correct, and that was the report presented last week.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Neighborhood renewal is so important. It gets so many things accomplished at once.
Renews the roads and sidewalks, sure.
But also
1) narrows roads to reduce future tax burden for snow clearing/paving
2) drastically improves safety, having a large human impact, but also saving us money on future emergency services and healthcare
3) widens narrow sidewalks and adds MUPs. These are standard in many new areas, old areas deserve them too. These help kids, people in wheelchairs, people using strollers, groups of people walking together, etc.
4) adds trees to parks and boulevards. A massive improvement to aesthetic, greenness, future canopy coverage, air quality, reduces future heat island effect, gives a boulevard to help with snow clearing. Buffers pedestrians from cars.
5) improves old parks. Without needing a massive stand alone project, but often does simple upgrades to lighting, paths, benches, etc. making areas more liveable.
6) adds bike paths and improves crossings for bikes/pedestrians.
Doing all of these at once is soooo much more cost effective then seperate projects for parks, bike lanes, repaving, trees, etc.
These improvements also have carry forward effects, like making older, central communities more attractive to younger families, refilling older/dying schools. It makes property values increase, helping share the tax burden more equally. It attracts new developments (see boxcar in Calder, local retail in highlands, higher density in garneau/west jasper/inglewood).
I get that times are tough. But renewing old neighborhoods instead of building new ones, should be the priority.
Renews the roads and sidewalks, sure.
But also
1) narrows roads to reduce future tax burden for snow clearing/paving
2) drastically improves safety, having a large human impact, but also saving us money on future emergency services and healthcare
3) widens narrow sidewalks and adds MUPs. These are standard in many new areas, old areas deserve them too. These help kids, people in wheelchairs, people using strollers, groups of people walking together, etc.
4) adds trees to parks and boulevards. A massive improvement to aesthetic, greenness, future canopy coverage, air quality, reduces future heat island effect, gives a boulevard to help with snow clearing. Buffers pedestrians from cars.
5) improves old parks. Without needing a massive stand alone project, but often does simple upgrades to lighting, paths, benches, etc. making areas more liveable.
6) adds bike paths and improves crossings for bikes/pedestrians.
Doing all of these at once is soooo much more cost effective then seperate projects for parks, bike lanes, repaving, trees, etc.
These improvements also have carry forward effects, like making older, central communities more attractive to younger families, refilling older/dying schools. It makes property values increase, helping share the tax burden more equally. It attracts new developments (see boxcar in Calder, local retail in highlands, higher density in garneau/west jasper/inglewood).
I get that times are tough. But renewing old neighborhoods instead of building new ones, should be the priority.
fromyeg
Active Member
Fully agree. I emailed council asking them not to cut Neighbourhood Renewal funding.
Not sure if it will make a difference, but if enough people speak out in favour of maintaining funding it could have an impact.
YEG Bus Rider
Active Member
policyenthusiast
Active Member
It's hard to pitch this idea with elections coming, a property tax spike, and rapidly declining non-residential tax income as industry moves to Leduc or Stony Plain. Beautification is important, but people are far more concerned about affordability and are willing to elect new municipal leaders on that basis.
thommyjo
Senior Member
Then let’s make the new suburbs ugly and cut out all the nice walking paths, parks, lighting, and signage.
People value aesthetic, that’s why many new suburbs are more attractive to buyers. They are simply more beautiful. Improving our aging communities is key to densifying and infill. Which is key to reducing tax burdens.
TAS
Senior Member
So $15 million cut proposed to neighbourhood renewal.
The city is expected to hear back from Province in Feb (budget) if $80 million is being provided to city for grants in lieu of taxes - the amount that was reduced since 2019.
Sohi proposes to use the $80 million to further reduce tax increase. I would support taking $15 million of that grant and restore neighbourhood renewal and then put remaining $65 million to reducing the tax. Actually, I would also fund the pedestrian bridge off 100 st with that money and then put rest to reducing tax increase. That would take it down to $40 million. Hmmm, still a lot of good could be done with that money if we wanted to spend more.
Greenspace
Senior Member
^100 Street pedestrian bridge likely to come out of future CRL funding, or perhaps a grant from the Feds. Taxpayers can thank Downtown later for paying for our own stuff rather than from the tax base. 
Gronk!
Senior Member
^100 Street pedestrian bridge likely to come out of future CRL funding, or perhaps a grant from the Feds. Taxpayers can thank Downtown later for paying for our own stuff rather than from the tax base.
They should acquire that funding from the feds while Justin Trudeau is still in power because I highly doubt they'll get anything from the likes of Pierre Poilievre.
kcantor
Senior Member
Budget 2025: Explore Edmonton asks city for $6M or won't run Expo centre and convention centre
CEO Traci Bednard told council Explore Edmonton has already significantly cut funding and can't trim any further without impacts.
edmontonjournal.com
thommyjo
Senior Member
Taxpayers would rather ignorantly blame that bridge on the woke bike mafia and leftist council for wasting THEIR tax dollars^100 Street pedestrian bridge likely to come out of future CRL funding, or perhaps a grant from the Feds. Taxpayers can thank Downtown later for paying for our own stuff rather than from the tax base.
An Edmonton classic
northlands
Senior Member
Budget 2025: Explore Edmonton asks city for $6M or won't run Expo centre and convention centre
CEO Traci Bednard told council Explore Edmonton has already significantly cut funding and can't trim any further without impacts.
Not talked about in the article: ECC's website shows they have ONE scheduled upcoming event for all of 2025. One. Obviously more events will be booked and posted, but that's a pretty bleak outlook regardless, so no kidding Explore Edmonton is asking for $6m, ECC must be bleeding money like crazy.
Can anybody speak to why ECC has been struggling so hard to book concerts since COVID? They had five concerts this whole year, meanwhile they used to sometimes have five shows a month. I know the world of concerts and touring has changed a lot but this is basically the only medium-large venue in the city for artists too big for Union Hall/Midway but not big enough for Rogers. Maybe it's time to explore leasing it to a private operator and see if they can better book the facility for concerts, conferences and events?
Greenspace
Senior Member
Everytime the City takes over a facility it's going to cost taxpayers money. Next up is the Citadel Theatre building.
policyenthusiast
Active Member
Anecdotally, I find the ECC tickets are more expensive than Rogers Place. I don't know a ton about the public events side but I know a LOT of corporate & political events use the ECC instead of the Expo Centre because of its downtown location.