Latest news with #urbanplanning
CBC
8 hours ago
- Business
- CBC
Saskatoon targets bigger role in addressing homelessness crisis with new strategy
Social Sharing The City of Saskatoon thinks it can do more to help homeless people and encourage affordable housing development. A report detailing new initiatives the city wants to establish as part of the Saskatoon Homelessness Action Plan passed the committee stage on Wednesday. The finalized action could be sent to city council for final approval in September. Proposals in the plan include: Creating an inventory of vacant and derelict properties and incentives to develop them. Working with developers to convert underused commercial properties into affordable housing. Incentives for property owners to repair and renovate existing units. Read the full list in the report here. The proposals are meant to complement the city's existing work on homelessness, which includes increasing public access to washrooms, supporting winter warming shelters and a forthcoming affordable housing strategy. Coun. Bev Dubois asked city staff at the committee meeting Wednesday if the action plan takes on work the province should be doing. She said she supports the plan, but wants the city and provincial roles clarified. "The City of Saskatoon is not [the Ministry of] Social Services and a lot of this stuff fits in there," Dubois said during the meeting. City manager Jeff Jorgenson said Saskatoon and the province can collaborate on some initiatives, and the city can do some on its own. "We're both staying in our respective lane," he said. "The list of responsibilities we're proposing the city take a leadership role in, we think, doesn't overlap into their realm.…This is the administration's perspective. And if council sees it differently, we're looking for that direction before we get too far along with the plan." The Downtown Business Improvement District (BID) supports the plan, but said it doesn't do enough to improve safety. Downtown BID executive director Shawna Nelson said the plan is urgently needed, but that the city should get more input from businesses owners and people who live and work downtown. "These voices appear unrepresented in both the short and medium term strategies," Nelson told the committee. "While it may not fall entirely within the scope of this plan, there remains a need for a dedicated plan with strategies focused on the safety and sustainability of our business community." New shelter site soon? Meanwhile, the city hinted it has identified the future site for a 60-bed permanent emergency shelter. Jorgenson said an announcement could happen soon. "I know I've said that before, but we're very hopeful that we'll be able to make that announcement in the coming weeks of where the location is and then conduct those public information sessions that we had committed to," Jorgenson said. The 40-bed temporary shelter on Pacific Avenue in downtown Saskatoon is only supposed to be open for 18 months. The province is responsible for funding and operating both the current and future emergency shelters.
CTV News
10 hours ago
- Politics
- CTV News
Edmonton councillor talks infill debate, increasing housing options across the city
Edmonton city coun. Michael Janz speaks with Alberta Primetime host Michael Higgins about the city's infill debate. This interview has been edited for clarity and length Michael Higgins: Why is infill suddenly such a contentious issue? What drove the considerable degree of tension we saw heading into the summer break? Michael Janz: This issue is a big issue in many, many municipalities across Canada when you talk about how we grow and how we rebuild our cities. Our cities are changing. There's more and more people moving here. Premier Smith's Alberta Is Calling campaign has been wildly successful. We've added 150,000 people in the last three years and where they live and what housing choices are provided, these are big questions that not just Edmonton but Calgary, Toronto, Winnipeg, even Fort Saskatchewan and Sherwood Park are trying to wrestle with. MH: Blanket rezoning. Your Calgary counterparts, their decision on that, it is considered by some to be their most contentious of last year. Were there lessons that you took from what Calgary went through on the infill issue? MJ: There's always challenges with how you deal with growth. I think generally, Edmontonians know that we need to build in, not out. That we can't keep doing more and more suburban sprawl. It's financially ruinous. It's environmentally ruinous. Everybody kind of agrees that more density should be concentrated around more LRT stations, but that's challenging when you live on those blocks and there's a building going up next door, that's where we really get the rub. MH: You proposed a policy change that would have cut the number of units from eight to six at the end of your sitting, though council voted six to five against that. Why did that fail? Why did that not go through? MJ: It's funny when we talk about these numbers, because even in Edmonton, a lot is not a lot. Many of our lots are very different, and the point I was trying to make is that there is no universal lot size. We should be talking more about what is the appropriate amount of housing on a lot. That's a conversation we should be having when we say eight units anywhere. That's not actually true. The vast majority of lots, they're not big enough to even fit the requirements for eight units. There's a number of important changes we made. We made the architecture of the infills better. We made them make sure they're facing the street, not facing the neighbours. There's many of them that already exist in our communities. You go to Bonnie Doon or Richie or others, there's many infills that are unrecognizable. They just look like new homes and that's sort of what I'm trying to get towards. So the eight to six was more of a communication saying this is what you could fit anywhere, especially when we constrained the size of the box, we shrank it to half the lot. MH: Surprised it didn't pass though? Six to five was the vote. MJ: I think part of it was a recognition that in some cases where you may be able to do eight closer to an LRT, closer to another location, my colleagues still wanted to preserve that opportunity, knowing that at the end of the day, when you get out your tape measure, in most cases, you may not be able to do more than six. MH: Where do you weigh in on the issue of members of council dropping off the radar before the voting is finished? Before you're done debate on issues as big as this one? MJ: I can tell you, we knew this was a hot one. I had told my colleagues back in the June 3 Urban Planning Committee and before. I've been door knocking a lot and I can tell you, Edmontonians are very sour at a couple of councillors who were not present for the vote, in particular one who's running for mayor. I think I wouldn't be surprised if skipping that vote caused irreparable damage to their campaign. MH: Water under the bridge where council is concerned, or do you see more coming of this? Might this even be something where the province kind of leans into the conversation? MJ: The province, in the past, has said that they want to see more housing. Minister Nixon has said to me that he's very impressed with how Edmonton has been trying to welcome more housing and build more homes, especially around transit. That Edmonton City Council is very focused on affordability, that we want to see more homes with more transit choices and more housing choices where you can live, maybe with one car, maybe not required to have two or three cars. Having options for families that are more affordable and in better locations where people want to live. The province has been very favourable to this. Pierre Poilievre and Prime Minister Mark Carney have both said they want to see more housing across Canada. The two biggest issues in poll after poll, it's not infill, it's housing and affordability. Those are the big issues. We're taking action in that at the city level where we can. Edmonton has been on an infill journey for almost 20 years. We will continue to be. There's always going to be refinements, there's always going to be changes working on it. MH: Where does that leave the conversation then on Edmonton growth? Calgary as well? The need for housing supply, housing affordability, when you know that when you come back, there's an election coming? MJ: I was talking to the other city councillors, and for me, I have 20 neighbourhoods that have infill under construction, but almost seven or eight councillors don't have any infill in their wards. This is a very hot topic for three or four councillors in the city, but citywide and province wide, the main topic is still the housing crisis, where we're going to build homes, how we're going to build a more affordable city and more affordable province. This is what this is about. It's about more affordability and more housing choices for more people and no matter who the mayor is of Calgary, Edmonton, we know that we need to keep building homes, and we need to keep building them in places where people want to live. It's figuring out how to do that better, and that's what we're trying to do.
CBS News
11 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Chinatown Stitch project in Philadelphia uncertain after Trump administration appears to strip federal funding
A transformational effort to reconnect Philadelphia's Chinatown may be in jeopardy after a Republican-backed federal bill, signed into law by President Trump, appears to have stripped nearly all of the project's promised funding. The Chinatown Stitch project, first announced in 2023, aimed to cap the Vine Street Expressway (I-676) between 10th and 13th streets, creating new public green space, safer streets, and better access to jobs, schools, and services in one of the city's most historic neighborhoods. The Biden administration had pledged nearly $160 million toward the project. But now, only $8.3 million in planning funds have been officially released; enough to keep design efforts underway, but not nearly enough to break ground. "It's really disappointing that the funding is not there right now," John Chin, the executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Coalition, said. Advocates like Chin said the project has far-reaching potential, not just for urban planning, but for equity and economic revitalization in Chinatown. "It can create jobs, better neighborhood conditions, and improve the quality of housing," Chin said. "That's what we really want from this project." Despite the funding setback, City Councilmember Mark Squilla, who represents Chinatown, remains hopeful. "Let's move forward," Squilla said. "We have the money for the design. Let's make sure we get the best possible project … We are not going to let this project die." So far, neither PennDOT nor the City's Office of Transportation and Infrastructure Systems (OTIS) has received official guidance from federal authorities about the impact of the new legislation. In a statement to CBS News Philadelphia, the city said: "The City has been encouraged by the level of support for the Chinatown Stitch Project from other intergovernmental stakeholders at the federal and state level, and as always, we will energetically be looking for additional funding sources in the future." The design and engineering phase is expected to continue over the next 18 months. Chin said in the meantime, they'll pursue alternative sources of funding. "Our hope is that we will finish up the design and construction drawing process in the next 18 months," Chin said. "In the meantime, we will apply for other money that still exists." The Chinatown Stitch has long been viewed as an opportunity to heal the scars left by the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, a project that physically divided Chinatown decades ago. For now, the future of the stitch remains uncertain, but the fight to reconnect the community continues.
Bloomberg
12 hours ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
Mexico City Pledges to Fight Gentrification In Protest Aftermath
Mexico City's government presented a plan to fight gentrification following a recent protest from citizens that accused foreigners moving into the capital of making it more expensive and displacing longtime residents and merchants. The plan's main goal will be to control rent increases, which will not be allowed to exceed inflation in Latin America's second largest economy, said Mexico City's Mayor Clara Brugada during a press conference on Wednesday. She also promised to protect local merchants with government incentives.
CTV News
13 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Redevelopment of Woodcroft townhouse complex to create three times as many homes
Ground was broken Wednesday for a project that will see 200 aging townhomes replaced by 700 new homes, about a third of which will be affordable housing. Brentwood Builds in the Woodcroft neighbourhood will be completed in eight phases. A 69-unit apartment building, consisting of 28 affordable units, will be built in the first phase. The majority of units will be rented out at market level to help cover the cost of the affordable units in a model the Brentwood Community Development Group calls self sustaining. The project received $2.3 million from the city's Affordable Housing Investment Program and $4 million from its Infill Infrastructure Fund, which is supported by the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, as well as $6.7 million from the province's Affordable Housing Partnership Program. 'All three orders of government, private sector, and public sector all aligned because we understand that having a stable, affordable place to call home is absolutely essential for building inclusive communities, welcoming community, but also the success, the prosperity that we want to see in our city,' Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said during a press event on Wednesday. Brentwood Community Development Group bought the existing Brentwood Homes townhouse community at 139 Street and 115 Avenue in the 1970s and expanded it to its current size throughout the following decades. Redeveloping in established neighbourhoods is 'just sensible,' said new Edmonton-Centre MP Eleanor Olszewski, who is Canada's minister of emergency management and community resilience and also the minister responsible for Prairies Economic Development of Canada. 'It helps us make better use of the space and of the infrastructure that we already have. And it's really the kind of smart, locally led solution that we need at this point in time,' Olszewski said. Sohi spearheaded an initiative for Edmonton to officially declare housing and homelessness an emergency in January. According to the city, one in four renters struggle to make rent. Jason Nixon, Alberta's minister of assisted living and social services, on Wednesday said that kind of declaration that doesn't come with an investment or action has the potential to only be symbolic, but that in this case, the province agrees significant investment is needed in social services, emergency services and housing. 'This is a critical component of the work that we have to do together, but also continue to be able to create a market in our province that allows builds to be able to keep affordable housing across the province. We've worked very closely with the mayor of Edmonton and his city council, as well as Mayor (Jyoti) Gondekdown in Calgary and her city council to create an environment that has now led the country for about two years straight.'
