Heated discussion on Edmonton river valley redevelopment plan at city hall

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2 days ago

Critics put the proposed new river valley area redevelopment plan on the hot seat Monday at Edmonton city council.
Weak discretionary language, less council scrutiny on developments and a lack of clear binding limits on environmental impact were among top concerns.
Howaida Hassan, the city's director of urban growth and open space, told council the administration has asked Edmontonians about this beloved space over four years and gotten diverse feedback.
'As we grow, so does the demand for events and commercial opportunities, facilities, amenities and municipal infrastructure with thoughtful planning and management. We can meet these growing pressures as we look to protect, access and enjoy this space now and into the future,' Hassan said
Kacia Kerr, executive director of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Northern Alberta chapter, said since 2005 the river valley has lost four per cent of its natural areas and the city as a whole has lost 11 per cent in the same time.
'It is significant given that the proposed bylaw will weaken protections, and if our citywide trend continues, natural areas will become extremely rare within the city,' she said.
Without stronger protections, losses will accelerate, Kerr said.
She cited changes to words like 'may' and 'should' rather than 'shall' and 'discouraged,' rather than 'prohibited,' have been made even between the May 2025 version and the current version.
'Edmonton's proposed bylaw should match those standards in cities like London, Ont., where ecological integrity is embedded in the urban planning framework, the ecology and the benefits of nature are what make this area desirable for recreation and why we consider it to be the jewel of Edmonton,' Kerr said.
'It's logical to protect the ecology before considering other interests, to ensure it remains intact fo ther future and to continue to provide the many benefits to humans of a healthy river valley ecosystem,' she said.
But Kerr said the new plan delegates decisions to city administration for developments under 10,000 square metres— the size of almost two football fields, eliminating council oversight and limits for developments under that size.
'We feel that the changes (in the) new area redevelopment plan will further enhance the cumulative impact of development and loss of natural areas in the river valley and make death by a thousand cuts even more likely,' she said.
Raquel Feroe agreed.
'A project of 10,000 square metres, which is the current definition of an intense project, should be an automatic 'no' for the river valley,' Feroe said, adding that complexes like the existing Kinsman complex could be grandfathered in, but more shouldn't be planned for, given existing wildlife 'choke' points.
Feroe said council needs to provide second sober thought and reducing the size to 500 square metres would be 'very reasonable.'
The 500-member Edmonton Mountain Bike Association (EMBA) does 25 'trail days' a year to maintain trails based on city specifications.
More than 90 per cent of the natural surface trails are within areas currently designated as 'preservation' under the Ribbon of Green and so would have been off limits to cyclists under the original terms of that plan. The association appreciates the trail-based recreation subcategory has been added to 'in-theory' permit access to those trails for mountain bikers, trail runners, hikers and event organizers.
'I say in theory because it's become evident since June that the terms of the proposed river valley area redevelopment plan can and will be used by pockets within city administration to thwart that access,' said EMBA president Joe Yerkovich.
'Somehow the bylaw needs to be amended so that pockets within administration don't have the discretion or don't feel compelled to apply the strictest standards against the natural surface trail development,' he said.
Patsy Cottrell is opposed to mountain biking in preservation zones, period.
'if we are to retain the river valley in anything like a natural condition, we should be here today debating a bylaw dedicated to environmental protection, rather than a bylaw with the word 'development' in it,' Cottrell said.
'The city seems to believe that biking, including mountain biking, is low impact, but it destroys vegetation, causes habitat loss, soil compaction and erosion. Hikers and off-leash dogs are also culprits,' she said.
'Preservation zones should mean what they say, identified on ecological criteria alone, not pre-existing usage. Human access should be nonexistent or carefully limited in them.'
Law student Ansh Gulati said the draft approach to environmental assessment and the mitigation hierarchy in the new document is flawed because the environmental assessment framework states that the environmental assessment is generally completed at later project stages.
'This contradicts the intent of the federal Impact Assessment Act, which calls for an early planning phase before irreversible commitments,' Gulati said.
'Assessment should guide development from the outset, not follow it. It should occur as soon as the full environmental impact can be assessed further without a clear mitigation hierarchy or guidelines to define minimization and regulate offsets. This process risks becoming merely a checkbox exercise,' he said.
Among the other ideas raised is a public review process on development, proactively purchasing and adding to land, and reclaiming land rather than grandfathering trails.
Eric Gormley noted that in Banff, only one-tenth of trails are open to cyclists, and even cycling advocates have supported the policy.
'Let's leave the river valley in better shape than we found it,' he said.
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