Semantics around subsidies won't stop city, developers from building homes

Debate over developer subsidies Edmonton's mayor says developers get too many subsidies. Developers disagree. Jeremy Thompson has the story.

While Edmonton's mayor says home builders are getting too many handouts and that it needs to change as the city grows, the main advocate for the industry finds the position "baffling" and says developers don't see any subsidies.

But both sides say they share a common goal.

Developers are building new homes on the edge of Edmonton all the time, important additions to the housing supply as the population booms, they say.

"We need to be able to build across the entire region, as efficiently as possible, to the greatest cost savings for the home buyer or the home renter," Kalen Anderson of developers advocate Bild Edmonton Metro, told CTV News Edmonton on Wednesday.

"That would take the form of new neighbourhood construction."

City planners agree more housing is needed, but council is trying to encourage infill in mature neighbourhoods because sprawl is expensive to service in the long term.

"We have to take care of these neighbourhoods for the rest of our lives," Michael Janz, councillor for the southside Ward papastew, told CTV News Edmonton.

"We inherit them as a liability. I agree with the sentiment that taxpayers have been subsidizing suburban sprawl. We've been subsidizing the development industry."

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi agrees, saying in a year-end interview with local magazine Urban Affairs that "developers in other cities step up more, but in our city, I notice that, overall, we are providing a lot of subsidies for developers, and those subsidies need to end."

Anderson said she's surprised to hear the perception from the city that it's providing subsidies to developers.

She says it's developers – and eventually home buyers – who pay for sidewalks and streets in new areas. In her view, snow clearing and sewer maintenance are not "subsidies."

"That is kind of table stakes for the work of a municipality, and that is meant to be covered through taxes," Anderson said.

Janz says maintenance and servicing costs are just one example of the friendly environment the city has set up for developers.

"Subsidy doesn't have to specifically mean an envelope of cash, it doesn't have to mean a grant, but there are grants, there are favourable regulatory tools," he said.

For example: a $23-million grant program for residential builds in Edmonton's core. Last spring, the city paused the sanitary sewer trunk charge for developers and council recently voted to start charging developers for landscape inspections, a cost that was previously covered.

In the end, both council and developers want to build a better city and say the semantics of subsidies won't get in the way.

"The development industry is not looking for subsidies from the government, nor have we ever been seeking that outcome," Anderson said.

"We need a predictable regulatory environment, fast processing timelines and a can-do attitude from elected officials and administrators to really pave that path to enabling the free market to be able to provide the housing that our citizens want and need. There is a lot of demand."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jeremy Thompson